Does music deplete qi/jing?

[oak]

8 hours ago, Phoenix3 said:

Is he basically saying, eat a nice meal, but don’t enjoy it? Listen to a good song, but don’t enjoy it?

 

IMO the main obstacle for lao-tzu is desire, so if you don't develop that capability of enjoying things to the fullest you will always be caught up in insatisfaction. So, for me what you did was the correct thing, you fasted in order to revive your senses, not your sensual desires.

Edited December 5, 2017 by oak
Jeremiah was a bull frog

[Rara]

9 hours ago, Phoenix3 said:

Yes! Those passages are exactly what i was thinking of, but I forgot where I remembered them from. Thank you.

 

Is he basically saying, eat a nice meal, but don’t enjoy it? Listen to a good song, but don’t enjoy it?

 

No. Just don't eat you fovourite meal every night. Balance

[寒月 Hanyue]

16 hours ago, Phoenix3 said:

Yes! Those passages are exactly what i was thinking of, but I forgot where I remembered them from. Thank you.

You're welcome.

 

Quote

Is he basically saying, eat a nice meal, but don’t enjoy it? Listen to a good song, but don’t enjoy it?

 

No. Wouldn't that be a miserable life!

 

While it is common to translate 慾 as "desire" and if you look in a modern dictionary it will also say "passion", this can lead to some interesting interpretations of what Laozi is trying to point out. That you must live a "passionless" life? Not only is this counter to the received pragmatic teachings, but also if we turn our hats to a scholastic view. 慾 etymologically carries the meaning of 'to want, to request, to ask, expectation, longing' the meaning of which is usually summed up as I mentioned, in the translation of "desire".

 

One way that makes pragmatic sense of this, is the view that Laozi was pointing out that when we want things to be something they are not, this leads us away from the Dao and into mental or emotional states that separate us from it (be they viewed or experienced as "positive" or "negative" states).

 

You can however fully accept what is, and experience positive emotional states. Denial of emotional states is in fact counter to the teaching of accepting things as they are and naturally arise.

 

That, or you can choose a dour life.

 

Yes it is true that many renunciates aim to reduce the impact of the world upon themselves to aid their training. Hence the term renunciate. But that is only way approach to get somewhere, and even that does not always lead people to where they are trying to get to. So don't mistake the approach for the destination.

 

Laozi explains an approach in a kind of tongue twisting, brain frying play on words in verse 71 (though different editions of the text read slightly differently);

Know not-knowing: supreme. Not know knowing: faulty
Only faulting faults is faultless.
The Sage is faultless
By faulting faults,
And so is without fault.

- Addiss & Lombardo

 

If you can wrap your head around that, you'll see that avoiding things is irrelevant. It was and is only ever a temporary stop-gap, which may or may not be helpful for any given individual.

 

Don't forget the Chinese saying "The small hermit lives on a mountain, the great hermit lives in town."

 

Edited December 5, 2017 by 寒月 Hanyue

[shortstuff]

As far as I understand it, you lose Qi when your mind produces thoughts. Most people don't just hear music, they try and interpret the sound. You hear a drum, you process it as a drum. But it is not a drum it is just a noise.

 

To conserve your Qi you should live in a thoughtless state. Which is non duality.

 

Music for most people puts them into a thoughtful state.

Just my understanding and I might be wrong

[Phoenix3]

Quote

As far as I understand it, you lose Qi when your mind produces thoughts. Most people don't just hear music, they try and interpret the sound. You hear a drum, you process it as a drum. But it is not a drum it is just a noise.

 

I don’t think this is true, as I listened to an audiobook during the fasting of senses, and I didn’t feel a lack of qi after. And when my yi is very stimulated, we have a tunnel vision, which is also a thoughtless state, but yi seems to cause qi to pour out.

 

So am I right in assuming that listening to the usual sounds, tasting bland things, seeing common things don’t deplete qi. But sensing stimulating, pleasureable things attracts your mind/yi to that sense organ, which causes it to leak out through there? This is what seems to be the case after reading a few replies and my experience.

 

The problem is, as pointed out by oak, the longer one abstains, the stronger the yi becomes. So when I was listening to my favourite music yesterday, I felt good but not amazing, so there was no significant qi leakage. When I listened to my favourite music after about 2 weeks of sense fasting, it felt much better and I was totally focused upon the music. This focus seems to be vital to losing qi. 

 

When I listened to that music after weeks of not listening to any music, I didn’t want to move yi away from my ears. I wanted to keep listening, over and over. I have no thoughts, just focus/yi upon that sense. Afterwards, I feel my qi has leaked out.

 

When I see a beautiful sight after many weeks of not seeing much, I don’t want to look away. My mind/yi is totally fixed upon that object and can’t think of anything else and I don’t want to look elsewhere. Afterwards, I feel my qi has leaked out.

 

So to simplify:

 

1. Stimulating stimulus reaches sense organ
2. The sense organ, when highly sensitive, sends a lot of pleasure signals to the brain, which attracts a lot of yi. Desensitized sense organs send a few pleasure signals to the brain, which attracts only part of yi.
3. When yi fully meets a sense organ, it causes the sense organ to have deep focus upon the stimulus. This focus is qi pouring out.
4. When qi has been totally poured out. The stimulating stimulus is no longer stimulating and yi returns to its original place.

 

I welcome any corrections. I’m not certain what I said above is accurate

Edited December 23, 2017 by Phoenix3

[EmeraldHead]

1 hour ago, Phoenix3 said:

which is also a thoughtless state, but yi seems to cause qi to pour out.

Mind is not thought. Thought comes from mind. But thought is made of prana. Mind only programs the prana. When mind is not controlled such as in that case, prana is directed outward thus not reacting with the mind to create thoughts, so for a short while it seems quite inside there. 

 

I enjoyed reading this threat. It strenghtened my understanding. And I really like the quote small hermit lives in the mountains. Big hermit lives in the city. Piccolo and Goku anyone : D

 

Basically you have to consider you consciously only are aware ~5% or less of your sensory input (6 senses here, mind/thinking is the 6th and a kind of core sense, as the other 5 pass through here...more like 5 external 1 internal). The other ~95% is subconsciouss. Besides this input you also have huuuge deposits of subconsciouss activity going on inside, equivalent to Amazons warehouses. 

It's all very taxing on energy. I'm unbalanced and out of training right now. But I did achieve a high level of mentation with tratak a couple months back and now I'm working through Jeffs vibratory energy system which is clearning away issues at a subconsciouss level .

 

Clearing issues leaves me relaxed and helps me to focus. It has a similar effect, just much more pronounced to body control training. Body control starts with sitting down and training to keep the body completly still through staying relaxed not stoned tension. Old time strongman Alexander Zass, if I remember well, used to talk about this, relaxation of muscles / mind-muscle connection / muscle control improves concentration. Basically you do some body control/muscle relaxation training and you will have less thoughts, thus more clear mental screen/field/voice and better concentration. But you can take this very far. Because like I said you have something equivalent to Amazons Giantic Warehouses inside you, full of issues that tax your energy. 

Samatha (through tratak) had a similar effect and as well as perception training. 

 

So, when people talk happy there is still sadness that a sage (whos got a muuuuch more clear consciousness) can hear.  When they cry there is still some hope, faith and happiness that a sage if s/he were to listen to it would hear it. 

 

The mind for non sages is everywhere. You struggle to concentrate because your mind is everywhere all the time, stretched and diluted. So when you are sick/tired/fatigued and struggle to concentrate or have mental fog is not that your mind is tiny, it is infinite but you do not have the power to tense it anymore, or just enough to experience 'clear mind'. You do not have the energy to expend further.

 

This subtle control of mind and prana and viriya should be undertaken all day while not in meditation. Do not allow your mouth to run loose. Do not dance with your limbs when you talk to someone. In yoga they call these outlets indryas!. Control the indryas! Control mind!

 

Control of indryas (mind, prana and virya) is also a very powerful boost to Brahmacharya, even more so than regular exercise, if you take this far enough. 

And Brahmacharya here not to "semen retention" but staying content, and gathering and harmonising/assimilating resources.  

 

 

So when you ask the question in the title...for a normal person with barely any cultivation/meditation progress, theres little they can notice and correct without meditation and cultivation progress. So such a person the answer would be joeblasts, go to bed 1 hour after sunset latest when you can and never beyond 11pm and stop sitting down. Stand up or squat. 

 

Watch your mind, are you attached to any sound in general, or the music you are listening to? If so then you're loosing resources. 

 

Sages have cleared so much, this is why you hear them of still having personal desires dislikes/likes but when it comes to the work they do not get attached to anything. No one is saying do not enjoy the music. But can you just enjoy the music without masturbating on all kinds of levels to that sensory input?  Can you take a decision without masturbatingly shooting energy and attaching to all kinds of constructs/feelings/passions/etc ? As a normal person aka inteliggent animal you can not. So you must go back to cultivation, if you wish to rise above sometime. 

 

EDIT: This is also related to Bardons elementals/elemental balance. "Balance is the hardest state to achieve because balance is immortality" . Start small, meditate and cultivate and do your best with balance at the moment. When you advance in cultivation and meditation the subtle will not be subtle anymore :).

Take very mundane example of the concept presented in this whole post/threat. You're doing "semen retention"/nofap and you go into a studio with like 5 TV around all playing some p0rn. There will be attraction, disbalance, etc. A sage would go in there and come out like he just spend some time in the mountains meditating with mountain goats or something : p

This is why if you meet some kind of teacher/aghori with unique cultivation/abilities saying the buddha achieved enlightement but not able to keep ego while he did and was able to keep it and still has lust s/he is foolish and blinded. 

Edited December 23, 2017 by Arramu

[Phoenix3]

Quote

Body control starts with sitting down and training to keep the body completly still through staying relaxed not stoned tension.

 

Quote

and stop sitting down. Stand up or squat. 

 

So should I do body control by lying down instead? I’m young, but when i try to squat it strains by knees and calves (the same with many asian sitting stances. It messes up my knees). Maybe since I haven’t grown up squatting, I should just practice by lying down instead? Compared to squatting, there are minimal pressure points. Standing up is fine, but after 20 minutes I start to get really restless.

 

I was reading Sivananda’s beliefs about controlling the mind and he says that indriyas create the mind like streams create a lake. From his wording, I guess what I was describing before is that when the senses/indriyas are passive, the mind is controlled. When indriyas are dynamic, caused by a stimulus creating pleasure, which creates attachment, which creates a ‘dynamic indriya’, the sea of prana is leaked from the body. But from where does this sea of prana leak from. Doesn’t Sivananda say that the eyes and nose are entrances (only) to the bungalow of the spirit? Yet many on here say that when (for example), you see a sexy woman, your eyes are drawn towards the shape of her body and you leak prana as it pours from the eyes, or the third eye. I’m not sure where else it could leak from.

 

Quote

So you must go back to cultivation, if you wish to rise above sometime. 

 

Do you have any practices you can recommend to cultivate prana? Most practitioners on this forum suggest things that only circulate prana. Ramana Maharshi just recommends asking ‘who am i’ to youself and sitting on stillness (which doesn’t make sense because who else is supposed to answer but the self/ego) and Sivananda basically demands you repress all desires at once, whoch isn’t very helpful.

Edited December 23, 2017 by Phoenix3

[ljazztrumpet]

10 hours ago, shortstuff said:

As far as I understand it, you lose Qi when your mind produces thoughts. Most people don't just hear music, they try and interpret the sound. You hear a drum, you process it as a drum. But it is not a drum it is just a noise.

 

To conserve your Qi you should live in a thoughtless state. Which is non duality.

 

Music for most people puts them into a thoughtful state.

Just my understanding and I might be wrong

Yeah shortcake.. Some music can 'melt your mind'/stop your thoughts because your mind gets totally occupied trying to comprehend the complex harmonics:

 

 

[EmeraldHead]

On Saturday, December 23, 2017 at 3:22 PM, Phoenix3 said:

Do you have any practices you can recommend to cultivate prana?

Brahmacharya, sungazing and earthing.

[Pavel Karavaev]

According to my feelings music activates human emotions, and with emotions we also lose energy. When I started practicing, I noticed that I almost stopped listening to music in about half a year.
When I was at home, I just enjoyed the silence, and very rarely I had a desire to listen to any music, and when I was doing something I stopped using music as a background (like many people do).

 

But in general I think that this is individual and I think you should listen to music if you like it. The main thing is to had enough silence for balance.

 

Sincerely,  Pavel.

[Kara_mia]

On 12/25/2017 at 2:53 PM, Pavel Karavaev said:

According to my feelings music activates human emotions, and with emotions we also lose energy. When I started practicing, I noticed that I almost stopped listening to music in about half a year.
When I was at home, I just enjoyed the silence, and very rarely I had a desire to listen to any music, and when I was doing something I stopped using music as a background (like many people do).

 

But in general I think that this is individual and I think you should listen to music if you like it. The main thing is to had enough silence for balance.

 

Sincerely,  Pavel.

Thanks you, nice words! Balance is somewhere in between extremities.

[dwai]

On 12/1/2017 at 2:51 PM, Phoenix3 said:

Being a Daoist really is an interesting life! Laozi recommends not listening to anything which contains the 5 tones or eating anything which is of the 5 tastes. I can see what he means, as I read somewhere that the kidneys (which store Jing) are connected to the tongue and ears.

 

so I went a week without eating sensual food or listening to any music and it was quite boring, and I had very little motivation (i’ve been doing semen retention during this time too), which are signs of lack of jing. 

 

Today, I found some good upbeat electronic music and started listening to it on full volume, and it was just amazing. As a sensation, it was like an intense orgasmic feeling that lasted for minutes. I just listened to the same song again for maybe the 7th time and the experience is starting to return to normal.

 

I know that pleasure usually means a leakage of jing, so have I just wasted all my Jing I saved up through abstaining from music and lust?

 

P.S. sorry for deleting my last thread. I got embarrassed for making a fundamental misunderstanding in my last thread, bit I shouldn’t have deleted it. I won’t do it again.

The oft-quoted lines from Lao Tzu "Five sounds dull the ear, five colors dull the eyes, five tastes dull the tongue" is not meant to make you give up music or see in grayscale only or eat only bland food, etc. It is a pointer to the fact that as long as one is oriented outward (sounds, sights, taste, smell, touch) they cannot discover the open-secret that resides within each of us. The De, which is covered by a personality (Ego) that is informed by sensory impulses.  So instead of giving up music, food, etc, one should turn inward progressively until they can uncover their De. Once one has uncovered their De, they are are in effect in unfiltered touch with the Dao. 

 

To help understand this better, my teacher always told us this. Along with the "Five sounds dull the ear" etc, consider this - "What gives you the ability to hear? The ability to see?" and so on. The more we are focussed on the outward hearing, seeing, touching, etc, we are misdirected from the truth inside (ie what/who is behind the Eye that sees, the ears that hear and so on).

 

Edited December 28, 2017 by dwai
More context

[Jessup2]

The simple mix of these ideas in the Shaman's world is not for the purpose of blocking them or whether you should enjoy / not enjoy music, food, or sex. In the Shaman's world view, the forces of energy (qi and such) are required for creation / perception of the physical world around us, a healthy body, and the importance of self as an individual being in that world.

 

Survival means we have to use the energy (qi and such) to create and renew the physical world over and over. The senses and mind take all the available energy to do that, and none is leftover to perceive the rest of creation with. So, nothing is left to use for any practices requiring qi and such.

 

To be blind and deaf to the energy and interactions of the energy in this world means that you are deaf and blind because all of that energy is being used up. The 5 senses are all we have to connect externally to the physical world. Reason and emotion connect us to the feeling of self. All of that burns up all the energy. That is the normal condition for all of mankind, and the reason that 99 percent of mankind will never be shaman material, and we never have to worry about them achieving any state of power or capable of manipulating energy for personal gain.

 

There are a number of practices that help to reduce self-importance, which is by far the biggest abuser of any leftover energy, and consumes the most energy of any aspect of being human. Giving any one thing importance, whether it be music, sex, food, or anything in standard perception, gives music, sex, food, or your self-image all the focus and energy. Sometimes a waste, sometimes not a waste, depending on if it feeds your ego or distracts you from your path. Depending also on if it drains energy that you needed to interact with other things. 

 

So imho, most practices share attempts at reducing the amount of energy lost, storage of energy, and the use of that energy to perceive and manipulate worlds and experiences that are normally outside of your grasp due to the waste going on in your daily lives.

 

When the masters say that things in life make you blind and deaf, it is basically exactly that from an energy perspective: there is no energy left to perceive with. Because energy in your being is not unlimited, and you are using that energy for things that don't really help you achieve your goals.

 

If you allow things to burn it up, or suffer leakage of energy through any physical thing, then you will never have enough qi to participate in the real other worlds where energy is all that matters.

 

In the same frame of mind, if you force it, you end up taking away from your life force. Meditate on the idea of a larger container to hold the energy, and plugging the waste or drain of that energy, etc.

 

Giving music or no music more focus than it deserves. It is certainly what it does for you, or to you, personally, that matters. To live with it, or without it, should no longer matter one way or another. But we should also not reach a level of being dark and morbid, since that is also just another way of using up energy.

 

Stay fluid

 

 

Edited December 28, 2017 by Jessup2

[Master of no significance]

On 3.12.2017 at 4:15 PM, ljazztrumpet said:

I'm a professional jazz musician and I can tell you my music is directly tied into my spiritual practice.

 

Hey, tell us about wat you think are the most spiritual pieces / musicians in jazz.

 

For me there is Abdullah Ibrahim, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley (some), Miles' "Sketches"  and some others, Alice Coltrane, Petrucciani, on the Non-Jazz side John Martyn, Mali Blues, JJ Cale,

 

Some can play silence

 

Share with us :-)

[Master of no significance]

Music can help finding stillness

 

Music can recharge your connection to the whole / dao / nothing / whattheheck

 

Music can help finding the child inside of you

 

Music can help you (a lot!)  with acheiving inner (and outer) smile

...

 

may the schwartz be with you!

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2018 by Master of no significance

[七星門]

This is interesting to me, I hate "background noise"  & don't like music all that much save in very specific situations & generally only instrumental music. 

 

As someone who prefers quiet & silence, it's interesting to watch how others function. Their televisions are always chattering at them, radios always blaring. If faced with silence it provokes what appears to be a sort of restlessness & if they can't pipe in noise they're desperate to make it themselves, making a profusion of words to no discernible end or desperately stopping up their ears with earbuds to block out the quiet. 

 

I often wonder what effect the words & pictures they ceaselessly stream into their orifices have on them.

 

I went to one concert in my life & in the oppressive immensity of the noise I found myself the only person standing still amongst a great mass that was gyrating & howling, everyone surging forward, hands grasping at the stage, eyes wide & wild, some angry at their neighbors, others lost in elation, & I could only look around me in wonder at the confused mass. 

 

It does not seem salutary to me. 

[Rocky Lionmouth]

Doing something enjoyable for yourself when you are tired or spent, such as listening to some music, can help you regenerate many different types of energy.

Your whole will respond a certain way to stimuli. I’d say thats a small version of taking external qi into you and using it to bolster.

Sometimes it gives you something immediate and sometimes it’s more of a creeper, sometimes you get zip-shit and sometimes it boosts you then and there and fills you with long burning fuel for the next few days.

 

Many MANY valid and useful points have already been done here so i’ll just add that there is no exact rule as to what messes your particular energies up. There are more or less smart ways to use them and someone versed in such research can show you and help you along.

 

Without trying to stir some fronting up i could argue your initial reading of LaoZi was a bigger drain on your jing and qi than eating some tasty stuff and bopping your top record when you feel like it, having a fap if you feel it’d be good for you or whatever. (How to you like my devils attorey suit? I just bought it for almost nothing at discount  )

 

How could LaoZi know what music does to you? He was, as has been pointed out, making an example of how what you know and observe as something ridgidly contained (five tonalities of color or sound) then you miss out on it’s influence and relationship with other things, are you even observing them in a context that is correct or useful? A good way to start is turning hearing inwards. But then again that hearing is not as litteral as one might immagine.

You have six senses right? One body and mind to explore and go about doing stuff. Sitting still, forgetting, not letting five somethings lead you astray etc, that’s all good advice on how to sharpen and calibrate your tools and not make hammers and nails out of anything unless you need a hammer and nail, in which case what kind and how?

 

What do you want to achieve? How would you gow about doing that? How will it influence and interrupt what is around you? How does it resonate with your nature? Shurely there must be a Way and some means to find out right?

[DaoKeeper]

On 19.03.2018 at 3:37 AM, Master of no significance said:

Some can play silence

What a sentence! Bravo!

My opinion is the following:
1) Try to listen to LIVE music
2) Be concerned of WHO is playing/singing this, because qi of that person is passing through his Art
3) Don't do it TOO often and never do ALL the time
4) Try playing/singing youself - this is one of the extremly GOOD ways of selfdiagnostics and selfexpression
5) Practice Daoism  - that will help in everything you are doing

Have  a nice day!
DaoKeeper

[voidisyinyang]

On 12/4/2017 at 11:46 AM, 寒月 Hanyue said:

 

Apologies but this feels like a mis-understanding of Laozi.

 

五色使人目盲

the five colours make our eyes blind

五音使人耳聾

the five tones make our ears deaf

五味使人口爽

the five flavours make our mouths numb

 

To beleive that there is only one singular 'true' meaning in these classics is a mistake. Bearing that in mind. Here the number five is being used to represent the manifesation in the world around us, it could read "all colour(s), all sound(s), all flavour(s)...".

 

It is not saying "music uses the five tones, the five tones make us deaf, therefore do not listen to music". Just as it does not mean "blind", "deaf", "numb" in the literal sense of physically being incapable of seeing, hearing etc. It means that we are blind to the Dao, deaf to the Dao etc.

 

Even if you avoid music, you are still hearing the "five tones" Laozi is referring to. Rather it is pointing to what occurs when we lose ourselves in the manifestation of the world. Buddhists would call that maya (illusion). Laozi remember is trying to point you to the Dao, which is 'constant', rather than the world of form, which is always changing. 

 

If you are not blind to the Dao, deaf to the deaf, numb to the Dao, you can watch, or listen or eat and it will not make you "blind", "deaf", "numb".

 

These passages are not in isolation;

 

視之不見，

we look but don't see it

名曰夷；

and call it indistinct

聽之不聞，

we listen but don't hear it

名曰希；

and call it faint

搏之不得，

we reach but don't grasp it

名曰微。

and call it ethereal

 

Which is a continuation of the previous ideas.

 

This is not philosophy or life advice, it is a direct pragmatic experience of consciousness.

 

 

 

 

Personally I prefer Gia-fu Feng's translation. I think the highest note - in music we now know that the highest pitch we hear externally actually resonates the brain as a whole as ultrasound which is then quantum coherent resonance of the microtubules with 3000 times greater electrical conductance as normal. This is called the "hypersonic effect" of the five tones. It's not from Western tuning but rather the nonwestern tuning using natural harmonics resonance.

 

How do you translate chapter 41?

Lin Yutang :

Quote

Great music is faintly heard

J H McDonald:

Quote

the greatest sounds cannot be heard,

J Legge:

Quote

Loud is its sound, but never word it said;

translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English):

Quote

The highest notes are hard to hear;

Humphreys:

Quote

the loudest sound can scarcely be heard;

 

[thelerner]

On 12/28/2017 at 10:12 AM, dwai said:

The oft-quoted lines from Lao Tzu "Five sounds dull the ear, five colors dull the eyes, five tastes dull the tongue" is not meant to make you give up music or see in grayscale only or eat only bland food, etc. It is a pointer to the fact that as long as one is oriented outward (sounds, sights, taste, smell, touch) they cannot discover the open-secret that resides within each of us. The De, which is covered by a personality (Ego) that is informed by sensory impulses.  So instead of giving up music, food, etc, one should turn inward progressively until they can uncover their De. Once one has uncovered their De, they are are in effect in unfiltered touch with the Dao.

 

To me, the '5 sounds' quote is an admonition to Keep It Simple. 

 

Don't overly complicate.  More is not better.  As Einstein said, keep things as simple as possible, but no simpler. 

[voidisyinyang]

6 hours ago, thelerner said:

To me, the '5 sounds' quote is an admonition to Keep It Simple. 

 

Don't overly complicate.  More is not better.  As Einstein said, keep things as simple as possible, but no simpler. 

 

 

So that's professor Patrick Edwin Moran's translation of chapter 41.

 

The secret of the "5 sounds" is that the Chinese tuning used a pentatonic scale but as Professor Moran explains, it was constructed from an alternation of yang and yin or 3/2 frequency and 3/4 frequency. http://users.wfu.edu/moran/Cathay_Cafe/G_tar.html

 

So when I say "frequency" I don't mean the Western definition of frequency based on symmetric math. Rather instead the origin of the original fundamental pitch is not named - it is inaudible as the qi energy-consciousness.

 

However, in the 1980s, China did discover bone flute of 8,000 to 9,000 years old.  This is the oldest playable instrument and was tuned to the same scale based on the yang and yin intervals of 3/2 and 3/4.

 

Quote

But something that is remarkable, is many of the bone flutes found throughout the world are tuned to the pentatonic scale. Many claim that these flutes are between 40,000 and 60,000 years old.

 

So every human culture around the world uses the Octave or 1:2 and Perfect Fifth or 3/2 and Perfect Fourth or 3/4. The secret of alchemy is that actually the 3 as the origin of the 10,000 things is also the "one" as being "not-two" or nondualism. Music theory is based on pitch as a spatial location that does not exist - so a "phase space." So with 3/2 is it C to G while 2/3 is C to F as the subharmonic. So they are both Perfect Fifth but in relation to the same "fundamental pitch" the 2/3 is doubled as 4/3 since you have C to F as Perfect Fourth and then F to C (octave) as Perfect Fifth. Again it is noncommutative phase. The Perfect Fourth is resonated from Yin as 3/4 back into Yang as 3/2 and that is the secret of alchemy.

 

And so there is no fundamental pitch since that process is eternal listening that is nonlocal - or yin-yang at the same time as Yuan Qi (the air in the water).

 

So it is not as frequency is defined in Western tuning (unless you consider the actual orthodox, early Pythagorean alchemy music tuning that was also based on pitch pipes like the Chinese tuning and had the same meditation secret). So Michael Winn gets into this - but he doesn't quite understand the specific secrets of the music theory - as it relates to geometry as noncommutative phase. In other words there can not be a "fundamental pitch" or as the Pythagoreans stated, "One is not a number." There can be eternal listening but the fundamental pitch is always changing as a spacetime shift of formless awareness.

Magic Numbers, Planetary Tones and the Body - CiteSeerX

citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.133.6256&rep=rep1...

 

by M Winn - ‎Related articles

 

So for example in the http://springforestqigong.com small universe meditation there are 12 nodes - because the 12 note scale in Chinese music tuning is actually the infinite harmonics of yin and yang. And so again each note is also yin and yang as complementary opposites with 3/2 and then 3/4. So in the meditation the explanation from qigong master chunyi Lin is that the yang governing channel is the sound OM for energy going up while the sound MUA is energy going down the front. But then in the meditation he says Om and Mua for each alternating note. The reason is that the Chinese scale is created from a change of direction of zero time and infinite frequency and infinite frequency and zero time - with each note. So Fields Medal math professor Alain Connes explains that for each zero point in space there is a "triple spectral" of frequency as 2, 3, infinity. What that means is you have 2/3 and 3/2 at the same time at zero time and zero space but infinite frequency energy.

 

 

[DaoKeeper]

This is interesting research. I'm pretty sure that all this true.
I only hope that Professor Moran end up with simple concept for himself after he did so big and deep research.

Returning to the topic I'd like to add that music doesn't only deplete the qi and jing. So doing something bad with you.
It also could do positive things for you like inspiring you, helping you to overcome the depression or cleaning your heart for instance.
 

Yes it has its price, but come on everithing in yin-yang world has it 

I personally like to hear the music of the far gone Past. It could me Medieval rythm music or ancient Chinese flute or Christian Church Chorus.

As an example, please let me share this magnificent piece of the Art with you, which I personnaly very like ^^
 

 

Edited April 7, 2018 by DaoKeeper

[Kara_mia]

Well, in fact everything deplete Qi, remember "five thieves"? Those are our five senses, e.g. sight, touch, taste, smell and feel, which are called as the "five thieves" because they all expend or deplete internal energy from the body.

Hence, more important is the degree of such depletion. I mean that some music depletes it a lot, and in addition leaves us in chaotic, unbalanced, scattered state. And some music has a wonderful healing effect on our hearts. It makes us healed, soothes and calms down.   

[DaoKeeper]

On 08.04.2018 at 7:23 PM, Kara_mia said:

And some music has a wonderful healing effect on our hearts

Thank you. I have the same understanding!
What do you think of the chorus above.
Does it clean your heart? Does it depleates qi, jing, shen?
What do you think?

[voidisyinyang]

So for example in the book Foundations of Internal Alchemy: The Taoist Practice of Neidan

 we find, on page 130, Table 6: Sovereign Hexagrams" stating
 

Quote

the twelve "sovereign hexagrams" (biguas) and their relation to other duodenary series: earthly branches, bells and pitch-pipes, months of the year, and "double hours"

 

So that is the real "star map" of acoustic alchemy from ancient times - the early Pythagoreans used the same tuning as the Chinese. haha. The small universe or MCO meditation is actually music theory! There are 12 nodes for the small universe meditation, as detailed in the book Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality - it is infinite 3/2 and 3/4 harmonics as yang and yin resonance. I did my master's thesis in 2000 based on this claim. I finished my master's degree based on this claim that the meditation was based on music theory. I proved to myself that this is true! haha. There is a secret to the music math that I then figured out. thanks.