Tolerance Taiji

[A.A.Khokhlov]

After taken a look on our discussions here I've found it useful to express my opinon on such an important topic.

 

As far as I know, tolerance was introduced as an instrument to fix injustice - in sex, race, age etc.

That means when justice is established and you are not breaking it again, you don't need to focus on tolerance anymore. 

 

It is like with taste sensation.

Taste is given people to distinguish good and bad food. If one's taste is broken we need to fix it. If person eats nothing, saying that all the food is bad, we need to use tolerance showing him that good food actually exist.

If person eats everything we need to use intolerance to teach him how to distinguish between good and bad food.

 

Overusing tolerance leads to loosing taste which inevitably leads to eating trash, sooner or later...

 

Tolerance and intolerance should be in balance.

 

Best Regards,

A.A.Khokhlov

 

 

 

[Marblehead]

Agree.  Especially with your last sentence:  Tolerance and intolerance should be in balance.

 

​Of course, this being a subjective concept, the balance point will be different for different individuals.

[A.A.Khokhlov]

The balance only seems to be subjective.

 

Lets return to the example with taste. In both deviations from balance - eating nothing and eating everything person would get sick. And would be healthy only in the point of balance. This balance is not subjective (being determined by person's mind), it is objective, being determined by the laws of nature (structure of human body).

 

Best Regards,

A.A.Khokhlov

[LaoZiDao]

Hello Master A.A.Khokhlov,

 

How about tolerance to homosexuality in society? Personal view, it's like an infection or poison on society. Today it's greatly unbalanced to allow this widespread by government and so on. I think it should only exist on edges of society out of public, if at all.

 

Recall about medical term tolerance: "the ability to endure unusually large doses of a poison or toxin.".

 

Regards

D.Taylor

[Taoist Texts]

Hello Master A.A.Khokhlov,

 

How about tolerance to homosexuality in society? Personal view, it's like an infection or poison on society. Today it's greatly unbalanced to allow this widespread by government and so on. I think it should only exist on edges of society out of public, if at all.

 

Recall about medical term tolerance: "the ability to endure unusually large doses of a poison or toxin.".

 

Regards

D.Taylor

[A.A.Khokhlov]

Hello Master A.A.Khokhlov,

 

How about tolerance to homosexuality in society? Personal view, it's like an infection or poison on society. Today it's greatly unbalanced to allow this widespread by government and so on. I think it should only exist on edges of society out of public, if at all.

 

Recall about medical term tolerance: "the ability to endure unusually large doses of a poison or toxin.".

 

Regards

D.Taylor

 

Hello Dean,

 

I personally see it out of Tolerance Taiji simply because it leads to extinction of such people.

 

If we speak from Neidan perspective, our Teachers treat it as a serious deviation and there is no way to succeed in Neidan methods in our School unless person manages to correct this deviation. Otherwise he/she needs to look for another school.

 

Best Regards,

A.A.Khokhlov

[FondOfDao]

Thank you, very refreshing for the modern world!

 

[effilang]

The balance only seems to be subjective.

 

Lets return to the example with taste. In both deviations from balance - eating nothing and eating everything person would get sick. And would be healthy only in the point of balance. This balance is not subjective (being determined by person's mind), it is objective, being determined by the laws of nature (structure of human body).

 

Best Regards,

A.A.Khokhlov

 

Hmmmm... I think that it might be a bit of a contradiction to try and use the body as a means of establishing an objective absolutism.

 

The physical body is not absolute in its structure or function. Even when things appear to be the same, they are different. As long as there is the acquired mind in the equation (and that is always relative), the corresponding Qi and Jing will always be relative to that individual. After all, we know that in Taiji everything is relative.

 

Looking at the Taijitu you posted above we can see that clearly.

There is only one thing in relation to another.

Good and Bad are also relative.

The Dao and nature do not judge us.

Thus there is only karma in the consequences of our actions.

 

The human body is a very bad example of a constant, IMO.

Deviations, I'm sure you agree can come in varying degrees. 

In terms of the human being, these can be physical, energetic and psychological.

 

One persons prescribed medical treatment, can kill another.

 

How do we "balance" someone's taste who has had a glossectomy?

What about the ones that are born without a tongue at all, are they perpetually out of balance with nature?

The brain can also change physically overtime in a way which makes you taste differently. How do you re-balance that?

Is invasive surgery part of natures balancing act?

 

Can a human restore the balance of nature?

Is a human, nature?

Is man-made technology, nature?

 

If you never tell a blind person he is blind, and he lives on absolutely fine, who is to say he is out of balance?

Only a relative comparison can bring about an idea of in balance and out of balance, IMO.

 

Many of the medical standards which are used to diagnose people and measure peoples vitals have to be adjusted from person to person relative to their constitution. It's all relative here in this realm.

 

The only reason spiritual cultivation can be achieved only through 1 way; emptiness, is because the spirit is not of this realm.

That's why you have 10,000 Qigong systems, but only emptiness can lead you to cultivate the spirit. One deals with Taiji energy, the other with Wuji energy.

 

You said homosexuals are a deviation in Neidan, but Neidan has to do with the cultivation of the spirit that is asexual.

What about bisexuals then? Do we make an exception for them because they can make babies?

 

Taste is given people to distinguish good and bad food.

 

Is it? Or maybe mind is given to people to establish for themselves what is good and bad?

 

Some people like to eat raw rat, others like to bbq it, others like some tasty rat intestine's soup.

I've heard that some enjoy to suck the rat's eyeballs right out of its skull. Is it disgusting?

 

How does that taste in your mind. Good or bad? 

To the people that eat it, it tastes fucking delicious.

 

There is no way to find absolutism in the physical body of Taiji, only relativity.

There is a gate in the body that can lead us to find the absolute, but it is not of the relative aspect of the body.

 

In TCM even the Wu Xing are relative.

Even when we speak of balance there, one cannot be without the other.

 

How can homosexuality be treated as a deviation when Neidan is about the cultivation of the formless spirit?

Immortals can appear as a woman or a man....

Edited December 13, 2016 by effilang

[SeekerOfHealing]

If anybody study anthropology of China and monastics know that homosexuality was rather normal in monastics or even some people said that's it's better for monastic to do so with other men withing monastic community. It's have own name in chinese but I forget it. Anyway homosexuality was pretty well accepted in China and that trend moved to Japan. Probably your neidan masters also like to mingle with young boys as it was generally accepted.  

[damdao]

If anybody study anthropology of China and monastics know that homosexuality was rather normal in monastics or even some people said that's it's better for monastic to do so with other men withing monastic community. It's have own name in chinese but I forget it. Anyway homosexuality was pretty well accepted in China and that trend moved to Japan. Probably your neidan masters also like to mingle with young boys as it was generally accepted.  

 

What a great mixture of sources!

You are putting together buddhist studies, greeks and daoists.

[effilang]

What a great mixture of sources!

You are putting together buddhist studies, greeks and daoists.

 

Sort of like the Quanzhen with Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism?

Coincidentally, they are called the "Complete Reality."

Edited December 13, 2016 by effilang

[Arkady Shadursky]

...

 

You said homosexuals are a deviation in Neidan, but Neidan has to do with the cultivation of the spirit that is asexual.

 

...

 

How can homosexuality be treated as a deviation when Neidan is about the cultivation of the formless spirit?

Immortals can appear as a woman or a man....

 

 

As far as I know immortals status is different for man and for woman, at least on Di Xian stage.

 

Please judge logically, we have different bodies (Ming), so when we engage Xing and Ming we would have somehow not equal result.

 

Also need to mention that in Traditional schools like WuLiupai the progress happens differently for man and woman.

 

So at least at Di Xian stage the Man-immortal and Woman immortal are different.

 

@ A.A.Khokhlov, please correct me if I wrong

Thank you

----

Arkady

[SeekerOfHealing]

What a great mixture of sources!

You are putting together buddhist studies, greeks and daoists.

 

Sorry but ask any academic about this. I'm not mixing anything. Homosexual customs of monastic went to Japan and it's not even a secret but it was regular thing so you can even do simple math that some or neidan practitioners from your school been homosexual. 

 

 

and saying about immortality you need proofs - otherwise it's make no sense to speak about. I personally sending emails and letters to scientist to check my Qi skills and try to deduce how to use it with technology and modern thought. Immortality could bring era of peace in people and only proofs can bring harmony with Dao because people start to cultivate. Many people started practice qigong around me because they found proofs in this. Saying and arguing about this and that makes no sense as we talking horns of a rabbit. Nature shows us the immortality of physical body is possible as many organism live beyond regular human life span but lets speaks facts.

[damdao]

Sort of like the Quanzhen with Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism?

Coincidentally, they are called the "Complete Reality."

 

No, I was refering to the academic point of view. Only that.

There are indeed anthropological sudies about homosexuality inside monastics institutions but in the field of buddhist sudies, this was the word I used, not buddhism per se. Also the passage to Japan perhaps has more to do with japanese institutions.

The greek part was about the mingling seeker was speaking about. It was well documented in greek sources but we have no parallel in China.

Besides, today we have many studies about sexual abuse (either homo or hetero) inside monastics (either buddhists or christians). The knowledge about that is more complete today.

In this sense it seems to me not appropriate to put all together indiscrimenately.

[damdao]

Sorry but ask any academic about this. I'm not mixing anything. Homosexual customs of monastic went to Japan and it's not even a secret but it was regular thing so you can even do simple math that some or neidan practitioners from your school been homosexual. 

 

 

I don't know and it I don't care really.

But this math is taoistexts-like from cases in one field you project to another totally different field. 

Based on the evidence brought out about buddhism we only can conclude in buddhism not in other traditions.

And again, the japanese case is different, Japan has more context for that, even they have depicted Mañjushri (I believe) as protecting homosexuality but it is something peculiar to them.

[SeekerOfHealing]

Sorry but what background do you have? Read some books on that. There are lesbian alchemy practiced in Taoism, homosexuality in Taoism more women oriented from what I understand, but you will find some men too and in neidan community too as China was pioneer in this, japanese people followed.

 

and what weak neidan you practice that homosexuality can affect it's results? 

Edited December 13, 2016 by SeekerOfHealing

[damdao]

Sorry but what background do you have? Read some books on that. There are lesbian alchemy practiced in Taoism, homosexuality in Taoism more women oriented from what I understand, but you will find some men too and in neidan community too as China was pioneer in this, japanese people followed.

 

and what weak neidan you practice that homosexuality can affect it's results? 

 

Sorry, but what background do you have?

Read some books on that. 

[effilang]

As far as I know immortals status is different for man and for woman, at least on Di Xian stage.

 

Spiritual Immortality has to do with the cultivation of the formless spirit. That is the goal of Neidan.

 

Any type of genuine spiritual cultivation focuses on this spirit which can only be cultivated in emptiness, which means one must already have found a way to reach the highest vibration in Taji (Shen) then push even deeper into the Dao to enter Wuji, where this transformation can begin and continue to take place.

 

The highest vibration of post natal Shen in Taji, is the lowest vibration in Wuji where spirit cultivation takes place and the immortal spirit is matured, incubated in primordial Qi that is the essence of Wuji.

 

Thus any definition which has the word "immortal" in it, implies that one has at minimum managed to project their awareness outside the realm of the physical Taiji and entered into Wuji, directly eliminating the concept of man and woman, which is of Taiji.

 

If there is still man and woman as a defining characteristic in a persons practice, then they are still practicing in Taiji, which means they are still yet only cultivating physical energy, which will die with the body and cannot transcend death.

 

When we begin to cultivate our Yin Shen to become Xiao Shen and from Xiao Shen to become Yang Shen, it may have our features, but that is not its true state.

 

IF anything a bisexual is CLOSER to the state of the formless spirit than a heterosexual

 

Please judge logically, we have different bodies (Ming), so when we engage Xing and Ming we would have somehow not equal result.

 

Yes, but I am not talking about dual-cultivation or bedchamber arts and someones sexual orientation does not alter their underlying structure on the most fundamental level. Our psychology can have a great effect on the rest of our body, but it has limitations. A homosexual person or a bisexual person or an asaxual person or a pansexual person has the same potential and energy system to cultivate the immortal spirit as a heterosexual.

 

The cultivation of the immortal spirit in Neidan has nothing to do with someones preference between fucking or getting fucked. Pardon my French :>

 

Also need to mention that in Traditional schools like WuLiupai the progress happens differently for man and woman.

 

Ah. The traditional argument. Wu Liu If i'm not mistaken is around 500-600 years old?

So if my school is older than yours, does it mean I'm more traditional than you?

 

So at least at Di Xian stage the Man-immortal and Woman immortal are different.

 

I never said anything about men or women, I was just talking about homosexuality and bisexuality in Neidan, in particular.

 

Furthermore at the Di Xian level, one is already well into the cultivation of the immortal spirit, which means they are already working with their awareness within Wuji. How then can there be the notion of man or woman in emptiness? This is not true emptiness, but relative emptiness, which means one has not shifted out of Taiji yet, but is still trapped in the physical realm.

 

If you see an immortal as a man or a woman, it is only because they project that way.

When you connect to one and see a man or a woman, ask them to show themselves in their formless state, and you will see the difference : )

Edited December 13, 2016 by effilang

[A.A.Khokhlov]

 

If you never tell a blind person he is blind, and he lives on absolutely fine, who is to say he is out of balance?

Only a relative comparison can bring about an idea of in balance and out of balance, IMO.

 

You said homosexuals are a deviation in Neidan, but Neidan has to do with the cultivation of the spirit that is asexual.

What about bisexuals then? Do we make an exception for them because they can make babies?

 

 

Is it? Or maybe mind is given to people to establish for themselves what is good and bad?

 

Some people like to eat raw rat, others like to bbq it, others like some tasty rat intestine's soup.

I've heard that some enjoy to suck the rat's eyeballs right out of its skull. Is it disgusting?

 

How does that taste in your mind. Good or bad? 

To the people that eat it, it tastes fucking delicious.

 

Immortals can appear as a woman or a man....

 

 

1. You are trying to equalize everything. We will end in saying being a human and being an animal is the same if animal feels itself ok. If you would like to understand what blindness is just put a blindfold on your eyes and live 1-2 days like that. After that you would have a real opinion on how blindness changes life and can you just ignore it saying "my life is as colorful as before".

 

2. First, who said you spirit has no sexuality? Actually this question has a direct answer and a reason behind it.

Secondly you might be mixing up traditions working solely with spirit (most of modern systems are about it) and traditions working with both spirit and yuan qi (and yuan qi is the part determining sex of a person).

 

3. Lets make an experiment. When you next time are going to have a meal - please notice if are you thinking like "I think today I need to want eat more sugar" or you are thinking like "Hey I want suger. Dont know why, but I defeinitely want it!".

Or another experiment: you can try not to drink for some time. Please notice what would happen earlier: you would notice a desire to drink or you would think that "I haven't been drinking for 3 hours 31 minutes. Now its time for me to drink."

 

By doing this any fellow forum member can easily find if taste is being controlled by mind or not.

 

BTW the entire Chinese food system is based on this principle.

 

4. That might be ok. Usually person needs some rare product if he/she has some rare deviation in his / her metabolism. And eating such a product can make person healthy again. If that was not a desire of mind!

 

5. After they've become an immortal. Before that they can only be as they were born.

 

Best Regards,

A.A.Khokhlov

[A.A.Khokhlov]

effilang, you usually ask pretty big questions.  I will take a look at others' posts later.

Best Regards,

A.A.Khokhlov

Edited December 13, 2016 by A.A.Khokhlov

[effilang]

effilang, you usually ask pretty big questions.  I will take a look at others' posts later.

Best Regards,

A.A.Khokhlov

 

The little ones are no fun

[SeekerOfHealing]

 

 

When we begin to cultivate our Yin Shen to become Xiao Shen and from Xiao Shen to become Yang Shen, it may have our features, but that is not its true state.

IF anything a bisexual is CLOSER to the state of the formless spirit than a heterosexual

 

That how you recognize true genuine school. Where do I sign up? 

[Brian]

FWIW, I often tell myself that I should drink or eat in order to avoid dehydration or disturbing others. Alone in my own space, I consume very little.

 

YMMV...

[SeekerOfHealing]

I like my pizza, can I become immortal pls.

[effilang]

1. You are trying to equalize everything. We will end in saying being a human and being an animal is the same if animal feels itself ok. If you would like to understand what blindness is just put a blindfold on your eyes and live 1-2 days like that. After that you would have a real opinion on how blindness changes life and can you just ignore it saying "my life is as colorful as before".

 

Yes, both are just the experience of being and the evolution of consciousness and awareness.

A human is not the same. We've come a long way to evolve to the status of humans and our awarenss is different.

 

I actually like to blind fold myself every other weekend between 3 hours and 8 hours, so joke is on you haha

I think it's a good practice : )

 

My point was about whether a blind person who wasn't told his was blind would know he was blind, not whether one that could already see, voluntarily blinded himself. Of course, "knowing" before hand changes everything, but we are always in a state of NOT KNOWING what we DON'T YET KNOW. Does that mean we are out of balance? Because if that is the case, then we are perpetually out of balance, because the Dao is infinite and this is reflected in our cultivation.

 

What I was trying to illustrate is that by not being aware of a relative state of balance one cannot know that they do not fit within that norm, demonstrating that often ignorance can be bliss, since that which is NORMAL anyway, is a relative expression of another persons mind and opinions and not a form of absolute reality, which is void of mind.

 

One commedian made a joke one time about having sex with a deaf girl. He wondered what the deaf girl's moans of sexual pleasure would sound like compared to the typical moan of a woman, who all seem to sort of moan the same way after hearing each other, he said : )

 

Maybe she would sound like Godzilla? Or Chewbacca?

Which one is more natural then?

 

In which case, is nature only that which man does not touch or is nature also that which man creates, man himself being a part of it?

 

 

2. First, who said you spirit has no sexuality? Actually this question has a direct answer and a reason behind it.

Secondly you might be mixing up traditions working solely with spirit (most of modern systems are about it) and traditions working with both spirit and yuan qi (and yuan qi is the part determining sex of a person).

 

I did : )

 

In our school we work with immortals every day. While they can project as males or females and generally associate with their last human form, their natural form is a state of completely unbinary and asexual energy.

 

And there is a law of the soul which is also projected into the Yuan Shen; FREE WILL.

 

It is a fundamental right, so even our sexuality is down to Taiji, it is not absolute. The human body is a product of TAIJI, it cannot be absolute in any form. It's a simple law. If things could be absolute here and if there could be physical immortality, there would be no need for separate realms ie: Taiji and Wuji and physical immortality would be the highest goal instead of spiritual immortality as the focus, but we know that we leave this realm to go somewhere else, where there is no physical body or form unless created by our own awareness.

 

Free will is very important.

The Dao does not deprive a soul of choice, but we must bear our consequences.

 

Even immortals cannot escape their karma, they also have to take care of what is left, especially for the ones that practice immortality by going away to hide in the monastery. If life cannot touch them, because they are so removed from society then how can they ever neutralise their karma with the souls to which they owe a debt?

 

The Dao is like flowing water, if we are out in the open it will wash us all the time. If we build a brick wall around ourselves and a brick roof ontop of our head, it will still get to us eventually by eroding the rock. The question is are we going to be dead by then? : )

 

That is why if we look back at the old sages, they were all part of society in one way or another.

Again this is due to immortality not being an on and off switch, but a progressive development.

 

Your karmic debt cannot just disappear. How is that fair to the souls to whom you owe it?

So if you killed 1,000 people and then you "become" an immortal, that's it, you're off the hook?

How do those souls some of which have incarnated specifically at this time so they can coincide with your presence complete their goal? Some wait many life times so you can meet in the same place on the physical plain to resolve your karma? What happens to them?

 

Life and death can only be repaid by life and death.

Some other types of karma can be broken down to make it easier, but some cannot be negotiated.

 

Back to the orientation stuff.

 

If I'm born a girl with a physical body but environmental and pyshological factors predispose me to a male gender identity, I can alter my body through hormones and even get a penis transplant.

 

If I'm born a guy I can also become a girl.

 

If the spirit governs everything and Yuan Qi factors into it during early development, then why would one ever be born with a female body but the gender identity of a man or vice-versa. A hiccup in the perfected Dao? 

 

None of these physical alterations change the polarity of a person's energy, but again, that does not stop one from practisting Neidan and there is nothing to be corrected, IMO and IME.

 

I do not agree than Yuan Qi is responsible for ones sexuality.

The Yuan Qi can contribute to the determination of SEX, but not SEXUAL IDENTITY.

 

I am heterosexual through and through, but If I decided that I wanted to go and have sex with a man today I could, who knows I might even enjoy it eh?

 

We have the power to chose. The power of free will can never be stripped form the Soul. That's our highest right.

 

We're going into gender identity here and nature vs nurture discussions and that's gonna go on forever, so maybe it's better to just say that we have different opinions on the matter and agree to disagree on this one : )

 

 

 

3. Lets make an experiment. When you next time are going to have a meal - please notice if are you thinking like "I think today I need to want eat more sugar" or you are thinking like "Hey I want suger. Dont know why, but I defeinitely want it!".

Or another experiment: you can try not to drink for some time. Please notice what would happen earlier: you would notice a desire to drink or you would think that "I haven't been drinking for 3 hours 31 minutes. Now its time for me to drink."

 

Well in my life, both are normal, because there are many things that I schedule, such as drinking water to keep hydrated at certain intervals. So again, there are no absolutes. The body can communicate it's needs to us or we can communicate our needs to the body. Its relative. That's Taiji.

 

Most of the time I chose what to eat and keep track of what I haven't eaten.

So it's quite normal for me to go to the kitchen and think to myself "I haven't had omega 3 this week" - Let's make fish or lets have some ceareal with chia seeds. After all we should know the condition of our own body and what we are giving it, when and how much. My body can't communicate to me the desire for a specific thing like omega 3, yet I know its essential to me and the body can't produce it naturally, so I have to use my mind.

 

It also happens that I desire to eat something, but the reason that EVER happens is if I think about the thing in my mind.

If I sit here now and remind myself of the taste of a certain childhood food, of course the memory cluster that registered the data from the 5 senses associated with that experience will trigger and ill be able to see it, taste it and even smell it depending on how in touch I am - AND naturally, that will make me want to eat it, but that's a voluntary action, we are in control of it.

 

 

4. That might be ok. Usually person needs some rare product if he/she has some rare deviation in his / her metabolism. And eating such a product can make person healthy again. If that was not a desire of mind!

 

Yes. My point is that it's not rare. In one culture it's normal in another it's not. If you served a rat to someone in one Country they would throw up. If you served it somewhere else they would lick their lips. It's due to the relative nature of mind and their environment. It's Taiji.

 

 

 

5. After they've become an immortal. Before that they can only be as they were born.

 

Again I don't understand this notion of "becoming" an immortal, as if it simply just clicks and it happens suddenly.

It's a very progressive development.

 

And I don't agree with the second sentence either.

 

We are born as women, but we can chose to be and act as men.

We are born as men, but can chose to be and act as women

 

And again here we are getting very very relative and touching cultural views of masculinity and femininity.

 

More and more men nowadays are becoming more in touch and open with their emotions, does this make them gay or increase their chances of becoming homosexual because they are closer to women who usually have much more open hearts?

 

The way we develop prior to birth is due to the soul (asexual) and the prenatal jing, qi and shen and qijing ba mai, but the way we become after that, hetero or homo is due to how we develop at a very early age AFTER we are born obviously.

 

The soul is beyond duality and so genderless, it cannot be responsible for sexual orientation and gender.

 

If sexuality is something so vague and abstract yet you claim that it cannot change beyond what it is born as, then what does that say for the more physical aspects that we are born with in Taiji, like flesh and bones? You claim those can be transformed into the highest formless state, so why not something like sexuality which is already at the level of the acquired postnatal Shen? Surely that would take much less effort? 

 

How can the immaterial spirit that is beyond duality have a sexuality which is an expression of Yin and Yang? That is not Yuan Xing, but just a presentation.

Edited December 13, 2016 by effilang