Questions about Xing (心性) and Ming (命)

[Phoenix3]

1. Meditation is considered a good way to develop Xing (心性). 

However, what effect does meditation have upon the Xing exactly to bring about a change to Xing?

 

Does meditation:

1. increase the amount of ‘Xing’ (assuming it’s a physical thing)?
2. just refine the ‘Xing’?
3. merely extract the Xing from the heart, so the body can develop it somehow?

 

2. How does Xing interact with Ming?

 

3. Is Xing represented by the Li trigram, and Ming represented by the Kan trigram?

 

4. As Ming is considered material, where is it found in the body? Is it somewhere specific, or is it spread around the body, or does it flow around the body?

 

5. What is the relationship between Xing and Ming, and Hun and Po, if there is any? I always get those two mixed up.

 

thank you

Edited August 2, 2018 by Phoenix3

[awaken]

21 hours ago, Phoenix3 said:

1. Meditation is considered a good way to develop Xing (心性). 

However, what effect does meditation have upon the Xing exactly to bring about a change to Xing?

 

Does meditation:

1. increase the amount of ‘Xing’ (assuming it’s a physical thing)?
2. just refine the ‘Xing’?
3. merely extract the Xing from the heart, so the body can develop it somehow?

 

2. How does Xing interact with Ming?

 

3. Is Xing represented by the Li trigram, and Ming represented by the Kan trigram?

 

4. As Ming is considered material, where is it found in the body? Is it somewhere specific, or is it spread around the body, or does it flow around the body?

 

5. What is the relationship between Xing and Ming, and Hun and Po, if there is any? I always get those two mixed up.

 

thank you

 

Xing Ming both train， 性命雙修。

A Buddhism might read some sutras everyday. We call them 修性不修命. They don't train their body. Therefore, they can not 借假修真, borrow the fake(means the body) to achieve the true(仙).

 

A chi practicer might train  their body everyday. we call them 修命不修性. They don't know how to go to samadhi. They just keep their attention in the feeling of chi. Therefore, they 認假為真. It means they think that the body is true. But the body is Fake in dao training. The body is just a tool to produce a 仙. 仙 is true, the body is fake in dan dao training.

 

So, 性命雙修Xin Ming means we should not make the same mistake with these people.

Hun is hidden in liver. Po is hidden in lung. This is very hard to explain. I usually don't explain to a beginner. It is useless for a beginner. Unless you have already find the dao. Then you can have some situations. You don't know why. At that moment, it is the time for you to get ready to know it.

Edited August 3, 2018 by awaken

[exorcist_1699]

Ming refers to  jing and qi  of our body ;  Xing refers to shen  ,  some kind of hidden , bigger Mind  inside us ; 

Prior to  understanding how to cultivate Xing and Ming, of course, you have to know about what  those  basic terms are ;  

 

Jing , qi and shen are  terms so thoroughly discussed on this forum ( eg. my " Why Taoism is different"  post ),  so I would not repeat them here  . Notice that the conventional ( majority )    way of Taoist cultivation follows   the   jing --> qi --> shen   path   and  it has two  main features: 

 

1) Cultivate  Ming first, then Xing ;

 

2) It is a  gradual way : After having certain  amount of jing  existed/ accumulated, you get qi ( likely through paying attention to your lower dantian if you are a man )   ;   after having  certain amount of qi accumulated,  you get a quality-jump to shen..etc;

 

 

Can you  not follow such a conventional path, and get some kind of shortcut  ?

 

Yes, you can ; That means  , you start from nourish your  shen  first, then by using  it to initialize  and upgrade  your  jing and qi . Concretely speaking, you start from ' consolidating'  a mindless Mind  first .., which of course is a harder ,  yet  faster way .   And, there are two implications of it :

 

1) It implies that jing and qi  not solely   be initialized and  'crystalized '   by  your focusing on  dantians , but also can be aroused by  your capability of pulling together a mindless Mind;

 

2) It also implies that shen can enhance itself through cultivating itself  , but how ? In fact,  many  Buddhist teachings  , especially  those from   Zen ,  already told us   a lot about those    hows  , what is  lack of  is   some kind of "Yang "  from Taoism ; so most of those  spiritual achievements degenerate into a  yin-typed Mind,  and most   'masters'  aged and died,  in the end , all become  futile .

 

Edited August 4, 2018 by exorcist_1699

[Phoenix3]

@exorcist_1699 So are you saying that the jhanas and nibbana attained by Buddhists (who do not cultivate Ming first) are false? 

[exorcist_1699]

7 minutes ago, Phoenix3 said:

@exorcist_1699 So are you saying that the jhanas and nibbana attained by Buddhists (who do not cultivate Ming first) are false? 

 

Thank your feedback ; please  first tell me  what    jhanas  and nibbana  are  ..

[Phoenix3]

14 minutes ago, exorcist_1699 said:

 

Thank your feedback ; please  first tell me  what    jhanas  and nibbana  are  ..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhyāna_in_Buddhism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_(Buddhism)

Edited August 4, 2018 by Phoenix3

[exorcist_1699]

9 hours ago, Phoenix3 said:

@exorcist_1699 So are you saying that the jhanas and nibbana attained by Buddhists (who do not cultivate Ming first) are false? 

 

The point is not whether it cultivates  Ming first or later,  but  its   refutation of Ming's cultivation   , and  its failure to understand that physical stuff and spiritual stuff are just  two faces of the same coin ( Tao) .Likely the original Buddhist idea on Ming is not so extreme, otherwise  the Buddha didn't say that his quit from earthly life and went into seclusion  was  due to his resolution to  solve  those sufferings  in life :  Aging ,  sickness, death..  through cultivation ;  and, most of those   sufferings are , in fact, physically related.   It is those  late coming  shallow-minded  Buddhists that  make  it  so biased.

 

Zen's saying " 淫心即道心"   (  " The drive  towards  sex  pleasure is , in fact,   the drive towards Enlightenment " ) clearly tells  people   the  truth lurking  behind . In practice  , the moment you get the strongest  lust is also the best opportunity   for  you to attain the great Mind...  , yet  seldom do people understand and grasp it ..

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 4, 2018 by exorcist_1699

[Phoenix3]

But you said that one must cultivate Ming first, then Xing. Does it not matter? I’m confused.

 

Also, the Buddha doesn’t seem to mention anything about cultivating Ming in the Buddhist Suttas.

[exorcist_1699]

On 2018/8/4 at 11:44 PM, Phoenix3 said:

But you said that one must cultivate Ming first, then Xing. Does it not matter? I’m confused.

 

Also, the Buddha doesn’t seem to mention anything about cultivating Ming in the Buddhist Suttas.

 

I didn't say that you must , I only said  that it is a "majority, conventional" way.  If you follow the "Xing first, Meng later " way,  which although looks like Buddhist  in fact not . Taoist  way is always  cautious of falling into a trap of mistaking a yin-typed , unproductive mindless mind for the  genuine  shen. 

Edited August 9, 2018 by exorcist_1699

[gj551]

Quote

Xing and Ming are two of the most important concepts in Daoism, but very little has been written about them outside of China.
To put it simply, Xing is the consciousness and Ming is that which animates life.

Chen Yingning said “xing and ming are like an oil lamp. Ming is the oil and xing is the brilliance of the flame. Without the oil, there could be no flame, but without the flame, the oil would remain unused.” This is a very good twentieth century interpretation of the nature of life and consciousness from a Daoist perspective, but is it the same as what the ancients said?

In the Eastern Han dynasty etymology text book “shuo zi jie wen,” (speaking of words and explaining characters), xing is defined as the yang aspect of the heart and as being paired with its yin equivilent “Qing,” which represents the emotions. Actually, when considering the eight trigrams, Xing is the two solid lines of the fire trigram, Li ☲ and Qing is the inside broken, yin line. In other words, the consciousness surrounds the emotions and the emotions are contained within a larger, clear consciousness represented by the clear sky.

 

Ming is sometimes viewed as the “jing” or essence of the body, but Wang Chongyang described it as “Qi” or the energy and breath of the body. Zhang Sanfeng went on to elaborate this idea when he said that Ming is called Qi energy because Qi energy and the essence are paired together, with the essence holding the innate energy of the body and making Qi as a way to cycle it throughout the body.

Later Daoist thinker, Li Daochun said in his “Middle Harmony Classic” that Ming is actually the physical body and the Qi. The reason for this is because he interpreted Jing as being the physical origin of our body, so in his thinking, Jing essence would be contained throughout the entire physicality of the body and then be expressed through Qi.

 

Later yet, in Yin Zhenren’s book “Xing Ming Gui Zhi,” he said that xing is the original mind (yuan shen) and ming is the original essence (yuan jing). The difference between mind and essence and original mind and original essence is that the original aspects of our life reside in the “pre heaven” world, which we already gained through our genetic inheritance during the embryonic phase of the development of our body, this means that these original life essence and original consciousness are not predicated on the aspects of the world that we can decipher through thoughts, feelings, or experiences, but instead is latent deep inside of us and can only be revealed during deep meditation on silence and non action.

 

Another interpretation is that Xing is the heavens and Ming is the earth, so they are represented as the heaven trigram and the earth trigram, or three unbroken yang lines and three unbroken yin lines. This means that as cultivators of the Dao, we must find a way to return the post heaven mind of fire (two yang with a yin inside) and water (two yin on the outside with a yang inside) back to their original natures of pure yin and pure yang.

 

As you can see by now, Xing and Ming are one principle with many different ways of understanding. If you can truly exhaust the study of xing and ming, it will be very easy to understand how to master meditation.

source: http://daoistmeditation.com/2016/10/18/what-is-xing-ming/

[Phoenix3]

6 hours ago, exorcist_1699 said:

If you follow the "Xing first, Meng later " way,  which although looks like Buddhist  in fact not . Taoist  way is always  cautious of falling into a trap of mistaking a yin-typed , unproductive mindless Mind for the  genuine  shen. 

 

But Buddhists do not cultivate Ming, as Buddha never spoke about it in the Suttas. So are you saying that the Buddhist results of refining Xing (jhanas and nibbana) is false?

[Walker]

On 8/4/2018 at 10:28 PM, exorcist_1699 said:

Ming first or later,  but  its   refutation of Ming's cultivation   , and  its failure to understand that physical stuff and spiritual stuff are just  two faces of the same coin ( Tao) .Likely the original Buddhist idea on Ming is not so extreme, otherwise  the Buddha didn't say that his quit from earthly life and went into seclusion  was  due to his resolution to  solve  those sufferings  in life :  Aging ,  sickness, death..  through cultivation ;  and, most of those   sufferings are , in fact, physically related.   It is those  late coming  shallow-minded  Buddhists that  make  it  so biased.

 

The rejection of what Daoists classify as ming teachings by *some* Buddhists is, in my opinion, an extreme position, usually undertaken by people who are at a stage of their life/learning where they feel the strong need to identify themselves as members of an exclusive and special group, and therefore to hold onto firm ideas (mental walls, basically) about what distinguishes their religion from other, "lesser," "misguided," religions. There is lots of evidence of ming practice in Buddhism you can read about. For example:

 

The recent book Meditation Saved my Life, by a Tibetan lama, sheds light on the preservation of what Daoists would probably classify as ming practices in Buddhism. 

 

(Note: the back cover of the book claims that the book "reveals the secret of the great healing powers that lie dormant within each of us." In fact, there are no concrete details in the book about how to practice what Phakyab Rinpoche practiced--and nor, likely, should there be--but it is still a very worthwhile read)

 

Also, one can read Charles Luk's translation of the The Autobiography of Empty Cloud for free in PDF form. This Buddhist master lived to a very ripe old age, and his life was most definitely not an easy one. Ironically, while he casts some disparaging remarks at Daoism, he is recorded in this book stating--to the audience attending a seven day Chan meditation retreat he led, no less!--that he believes that Lu Dongbin (one of the immortals who taught Wang Chongyang) and Zhang Boduan (author of Awakening to Reality and founder of the "ming first southern school" of internal alchemy) were both enlightened Chan masters. That Chan/Zen owes much of its development to Daoist philosophy is widely known and seldom disputed, but lesser known is that some Chan/Zen teachers, including in Japan, continue to use signature Daoist ming practices, such as those that work with the dantians as well as ren and du meridians.* So: did Empty Cloud, heir to all five schools of Chan, live to 120 because he was taught Daoist gong, some of which came directly from his Daoist tutor, and some of which might have been transmitted to him by Chan masters? I don't think anybody knows the answer to that question, but... 

 

*Some examples described in this book, iirc; video where the same master talks about mixing heaven and earth qi during meditation, here (has English subtitles)

Edited August 7, 2018 by Walker

[voidisyinyang]

On 8/2/2018 at 5:53 PM, Phoenix3 said:

1. Meditation is considered a good way to develop Xing (心性). 

However, what effect does meditation have upon the Xing exactly to bring about a change to Xing?

 

Does meditation:

1. increase the amount of ‘Xing’ (assuming it’s a physical thing)?
2. just refine the ‘Xing’?
3. merely extract the Xing from the heart, so the body can develop it somehow?

 

2. How does Xing interact with Ming?

 

3. Is Xing represented by the Li trigram, and Ming represented by the Kan trigram?

 

4. As Ming is considered material, where is it found in the body? Is it somewhere specific, or is it spread around the body, or does it flow around the body?

 

5. What is the relationship between Xing and Ming, and Hun and Po, if there is any? I always get those two mixed up.

 

thank you

Quote

When (essential) nature and (eternal) life unite in the confused state in the cavity of vitality (under the navel) the least carelessness on the part of the practiser may cause his failure to keep them together there; spirit will then leave this centre and the most precious thing will drain away at night.

https://archive.org/stream/TaoistYogaAlchemyAndImmortalityLuKuanYCharlesLuk/Taoist Yoga Alchemy and Immortality Lu K’uan Yü (Charles Luk)_djvu.txt

just word search "essential" - you'll find lots of info.

[exorcist_1699]

On 2018/8/7 at 5:44 PM, Walker said:

 

The rejection of what Daoists classify as ming teachings by *some* Buddhists is, in my opinion, an extreme position, usually undertaken by people who are at a stage of their life/learning where they feel the strong need to identify themselves as members of an exclusive and special group, and therefore to hold onto firm ideas (mental walls, basically) about what distinguishes their religion from other, "lesser," "misguided," religions. There is lots of evidence of ming practice in Buddhism you can read about. For example:

 

The recent book Meditation Saved my Life, by a Tibetan lama, sheds light on the preservation of what Daoists would probably classify as ming practices in Buddhism. 

 

(Note: the back cover of the book claims that the book "reveals the secret of the great healing powers that lie dormant within each of us." In fact, there are no concrete details in the book about how to practice what Phakyab Rinpoche practiced--and nor, likely, should there be--but it is still a very worthwhile read)

 

Also, one can read Charles Luk's translation of the The Autobiography of Empty Cloud for free in PDF form. This Buddhist master lived to a very ripe old age, and his life was most definitely not an easy one. Ironically, while he casts some disparaging remarks at Daoism, he is recorded in this book stating--to the audience attending a seven day Chan meditation retreat he led, no less!--that he believes that Lu Dongbin (one of the immortals who taught Wang Chongyang) and Zhang Boduan (author of Awakening to Reality and founder of the "ming first southern school" of internal alchemy) were both enlightened Chan masters. That Chan/Zen owes much of its development to Daoist philosophy is widely known and seldom disputed, but lesser known is that some Chan/Zen teachers, including in Japan, continue to use signature Daoist ming practices, such as those that work with the dantians as well as ren and du meridians.* So: did Empty Cloud, heir to all five schools of Chan, live to 120 because he was taught Daoist gong, some of which came directly from his Daoist tutor, and some of which might have been transmitted to him by Chan masters? I don't think anybody knows the answer to that question, but... 

 

*Some examples described in this book, iirc; video where the same master talks about mixing heaven and earth qi during meditation, here (has English subtitles)

 

 

Reading Zen / Buddhist masters' biography / autobiography  is always helpful .  Reading their criticisms on Taoist alchemy  is  more helpful . Examples  from modern China are  : 虛雲,  印光 , 月溪...etc  ; 

 

Although people  can enforce a mindless mind,  which seemingly  giving them a feeling of linking to the universe or  to all  people,  it  still can be something  unproductive  .  Whether  their mindlessness   is  a stagnant pool of water ,  or a   pool of  water full of life  really dependent on how much /what quality of jing  they can keep and consolidate  .  Those  never-married or  teens-turned monk later become masters  from Buddhism  unfortunately  seldom notice it and their criticisms on Taoist jing-qi-shen  way   therefore always sound   superficial . 

 

Generally speaking, Taoist practitioners  ,after having attain certain  deepness of mindlessness ,  understand what those Sutra/ Zen dialogues say , and can approximately identify what level the speaker/ preacher  reached  ;  vice  versa  Buddhists  who can understand Taoist way's  significance are  rare .

Edited August 10, 2018 by exorcist_1699

[Walker]

Exorcist:

 

Can you please provide links/bibliographical references to what 虛雲,  印光, and 月溪 have said about Daoist alchemy? 

 

Note that above when I was talking about Empty Cloud, this was 虛雲老和尚; it was in his biography where he is recorded saying that 呂洞賓 and 張伯端 are realized Chan masters while he was teaching at a 禪七. If he is on record making more comments about Daoist alchemy, I would be interested in reading them. 

[Phoenix3]

@exorcist_1699 why wouldn’t just celibacy of the mind and body be enough jing? Buddha said that being celibate in mind and body was enough.

[exorcist_1699]

On 2018/8/9 at 5:59 PM, Walker said:

Exorcist:

 

Can you please provide links/bibliographical references to what 虛雲,  印光, and 月溪 have said about Daoist alchemy? 

 

Note that above when I was talking about Empty Cloud, this was 虛雲老和尚; it was in his biography where he is recorded saying that 呂洞賓 and 張伯端 are realized Chan masters while he was teaching at a 禪七. If he is on record making more comments about Daoist alchemy, I would be interested in reading them. 

 

Empty Cloud once repeated what he thought of an affair being true :  describing how Taoist master LU  learnt from a Zen monk :

 

Empty Cloud said :

 

宗门（指禅宗）下源远流长，天神归依，龙虎归降，八仙会上的吕洞宾，别号纯阳，京川人，唐末三举不第，无心归家，偶于长安酒肆，遇锺离权，授以延命之术。洞宾依法修行，后来乃飞腾自在，云游天下。一日至庐山海会寺，在钟楼壁上书四句偈云：“一日清闲自在身，六神和合报平安；丹田有宝休问道，对境无心莫问禅！”未几道经黄龙山，睹紫云成盖，疑有异人，乃入谒。

值黄龙击鼓升座，吕遂随众入堂听法。黄龙曰：“今日有人窃法，老僧不说！”洞宾出而礼拜。问曰：“请问和尚：如何是一粒粟中藏世界，半升铛内煮山川？”黄龙骂曰：“这守尸鬼！”洞宾曰：“争奈囊中自有长生不死药。”

黄龙曰：“饶经八万劫，未免落空亡。”

洞宾忘了“对境无心莫问禅”的功夫，大发瞋心，飞剑斩黄龙。黄龙以手一指，其剑落地，不能取得。洞宾礼拜悔过，请问佛法。

黄龙曰：“半升铛内煮山川，即不问，如何是一粒粟中藏世界？”

洞宾于言下顿契玄旨，乃述偈忏曰：

弃却瓢囊击碎琴，从今不恋汞中金；

自从一见黄龙后，始觉当年错用心！

此是仙人归依三宝，求入伽蓝为护法的一例。道教在洞宾之手亦大兴起来，为北五祖；紫阳真人，又是阅祖英集，而明心地的南五祖；故此道教亦是为佛教宗门（指禅宗）所续启。

 

Maybe this one  is what you refer to .  Unfortunately such an event unlikely happened ;    Taoist  scholar Chen Ying-Ling and master WU ( 伍冲虛) already wrote about it  in details...only because you ask about it ;  of course, his talk sounds  positive , but placing Taoism as something inferior is quite clear.

 

Pure-Land monk : 印光  , his criticism on Wu-Liu school is  widely known , please read  : 

 

"印光法師文鈔"

 

 

Edited August 10, 2018 by exorcist_1699

[exorcist_1699]

On 2018/8/9 at 6:01 PM, Phoenix3 said:

@exorcist_1699 why wouldn’t just celibacy of the mind and body be enough jing? Buddha said that being celibate in mind and body was enough.

 

There are many ways we  lose jing,  not only sex intercourse ; If it is only  celibacy matters, then we can  easily see many immortals walking in the streets..;  

[Phoenix3]

2 hours ago, exorcist_1699 said:

 

There are many ways we  lose jing,  not only sex intercourse ; If it is only  celibacy matters, then we can  easily see many immortals walking in the streets..;  

Yes, but I said clearly celibacy of the mind and body (which is called brahmacharya), and just doing meditation regardless reduces jing leakage as shen holds jing. Thus celibacy of the mind and body should be enough to retain enough jing.

[voidisyinyang]

On 8/10/2018 at 7:42 AM, Phoenix3 said:

Yes, but I said clearly celibacy of the mind and body (which is called brahmacharya), and just doing meditation regardless reduces jing leakage as shen holds jing. Thus celibacy of the mind and body should be enough to retain enough jing.

 

I read a training manual of Brahmin rules - in a used bookstore - stating if a Brahmin priest MAKES EYE CONTACT with a female then three days of purification rituals are required. So clearly celibacy of mind and body is quite strict. A Buddhist manual I read said that there should be 2 miles from the nearest other humans. When John Chang did his intensive solo meditation - the closest other humans were 3 miles away.

 

So what happens is the eyes "twinkle" at the form of beauty - this is a photonic signal to the pineal gland that then sends the qi signal down to the adrenal glands which send the signal to the Qihai - the prostate - to kick out lecithin and this is a photonic signal to dilate the gate of mortality - which then sends qi down to the testicles, to make generative fluid.

 

So this is why generative fluid is not to be "retained" because MAKING generative fluid is itself a blockage. And the only way to fix it is through deep Quick Fire breathing to reset the parasympathetic nervous system. The LUST photonic signal is a sympathetic nervous system via the pineal gland - and down to the gate of mortality - so that is the trigger that has been fired. If it is not reversed then dreams become real at night while even in deep dreamless sleep.

 

So Brahmin priests relied on the Caste system to do Mind Yoga by separation from females. Daoists instead use standing active exercises with deep strong reverse breathing to reset the nervous system. But it requires meditation with Shen to purify the jing again. So even with standing - you want to visualize fire at the base of the spine, just as the San Bushmen taught as well.

 

to create Qi is not to "retain jing" - Qi is the process of Shen under Jing as the alchemical pill.

So it is a transmutation process of cleansing and purification.

This whole meme of "retaining" is a Western materialistic construct.

If your mind is focused on retaining your generative fluid - then you don't have any cleansing and purification. Only the Shen through meditation enables cleansing and purification as Neidan alchemy.

 

So the standing active meditation also empties out the mind - but with sitting meditation you open up the lower back blockage so that you get a deeper parasympathetic activate up the spine.

 

 

[voidisyinyang]

58 minutes ago, EmeraldHead said:

So really advanced cultivators have such strong vitality that the slightest leakage can result in massive nose blood spill like in anime.

I am have tried to compare anime to actual training - sounds like a real mess. Master Nan, Huai-chin critiques Japan has full of fake training. So I doubt their "anime" is any better.

[EmeraldHead]

You find any lvl poeple on the web. Because it ain't easy. But it's surely possible. 

[Rocky Lionmouth]

And here i thought Xing was ones nature whereas Ming was life itself, at least on a basic level.

[exorcist_1699]

On 2018/8/10 at 8:42 PM, Phoenix3 said:

Yes, but I said clearly celibacy of the mind and body (which is called brahmacharya), and just doing meditation regardless reduces jing leakage as shen holds jing. Thus celibacy of the mind and body should be enough to retain enough jing.

 

Their relations are subtle  and not so  simple as people think...

 

 It is said that: " 性由自悟, 命假師傳  "  ("  While Xing is something  self-enlightened ,  Meng relies on  sifu's hints "  )

Xing is like the 4th dimension, no matter how hard   mathematicians or physicists try to explicate it, people can only roughly imagine what it is  .  In fact,   Xing  is a  strange dimension of our mind which  is extremely difficult  to grasp , as  a saying tells us :
 
" 海枯終見底, 人死不知心" 

 

( " It is possible that one day  in future the sea  dries up and you see its bottom , seldom can   men  understand what their  real Mind are even on their deathbeds " ) 

 

 

The exploration of  the core  of Xing gets  its varied levels of depthness;   rather than proving the accomplishment of Xing  at different stages through spiritual preaching , like what you find in those look silly  Zen's   Koans , Taoism smartly proves them  the other way round through something look  weird : Can you  stop the leakage of jing  just  through applying  your mindless mind ?  Or, can you  stop your  breathing or  heartbeat whenever you like   in a mindless state ;

Like what you find in science, a good theory not only explains the existing phenomena well, but predicts the happening or existence of something strange , for example:

 

 Einstein's prediction of  the curvature of space was proved by observing the   change of position of  a far away star when its light passing through our Sun's edge  while  it was in total eclipse ; 

Or, Poincare's proposal of the existence of gravitational wave..etc.

 

Taoist alchemy says  that if  you  do your Xing gong ( roughly means 'practice' ) well,  then a stoppage of your breathing or heartbeat  will definitely happen at some stage of  your cultivation ; which  , from a scientific point of  view,  is something fatal,  yet  from Taoist point of view,  is a must and nothing strange  because the stoppage  of  your old  way of breathing  provides  the condition for  the rise of  the pre-heavenly qi .  A deep mindless Mind ( Shen ) will definitely  'mobilize'  the pre-heavenly qi  , appeared as embryonic breathing.  Shen and qi are just two faces  ( Yin /yang)  of the same coin: Tao, and they interact . Their  'intercourse'  is something inevitable as you reach certain stage, and such   an intercourse   also makes them inseparable ( comparing to others' ways of settling  our  minds and their inevitable  failures , how clever  the Taoist  way is ..) 

 

Mater Zhang Zhi Yang ( Bai Tuan ) once said :  " 不識陰陽莫亂為" .

 

( " If you don't well understand the theory of Yin and Yang,  don't carelessly muddle  Taoist alchemy  ")

 

Edited August 16, 2018 by exorcist_1699

[voidisyinyang]

 So the physical breathing turns the generative fluid produced by food digestion into generative force (yin qi) and the Spirit or Fire from the heart transforms the generative force into Yuan Qi or prenatal vitality. So the cleansing and purification "stops" and "restarts" and "rests" at the 4 directions - the kidneys, the heart, the third eye and the lower tan t'ien. If the generative fluid is not purified then it sullies the blood - and so clogs the channels.

 

So then the eyes rotate with the breathing so that the Sun and the Moon are mingled and turned inward - so that "positive fire" is created which then can create the Yuan Qi from the generative force. The generative force thus turns into the alchemical agent and "positive principle" (Yuan Qi) is restored for immortality.

 

Then it is by spirit awareness that we determine how much Yuan Qi is built up, as the microcosmic inner alchemical agent, which is stored in the "inner" core of the Lower Tan T'ien.

 

The yang qi, going up the spine, creates light internally as the "relative void" but the yin qi and yang qi are in the "outer" core of the lower tan t'ien. So they need to be further purified by the Positive Spirit of the Sun and Moon to keep building up Yuan Qi. Once the Yuan Qi builds up enough, from enough generative force being restored - back to a 16  year old, then the third eye fully opens and the T'ai Chi is experienced as a bright white light:  The Light of vitality, the Yuan Qi, manifesting the Yuan Shen, outside the body, as the Mysterious Gate, the Dao.

 

So this combination of Spirit plus Breathing being synchronized is called Locking up the Monkey Heart and Tying Up the Running Horse of the Intellect.

Lockin

 

If the Small Universe or Microcosmic Orbit meditation is then not continued, then the Yuan Qi can not be stored up and the progress is lost, the "Foundation" will be lost, and the person "falls out of enlightenment."

 

If the intellect (horse) and passion (monkey) can not be cut off then at best only the generative force (yin and yang qi) can be maintained for health.

 

Edited August 16, 2018 by voidisyinyang