Is non-duality actually a fundamental truth, or just another philosophy?

[Bindi]

1 minute ago, dawei said:

 

can you show xing and ming around 1 ad or before ?   I'm all ears

 

 

I find xing and ming difficult to remember and not really necessary, it's too much like dry learning for me. One of those 'people came along and made stuff up' moments sounds good to me. 

[Apech]

33 minutes ago, dawei said:

 

can you show xing and ming around 1 ad or before ?   I'm all ears

 

 

 

The Cantong qi is dated to Han dynasty - so around 200bc -200 ad. so you won't find any Nei Dan before that only Wei Dan.

Edited August 23, 2018 by Apech

[dawei]

44 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

 

The Cantong qi is dated to Han dynasty - so around 200bc -200 ad. so you won't find any Nei Dan before that only Wei Dan.

um...  don't find that.  Now I'm forced to give some links.

 

http://www.goldenelixir.com/jindan/jindan_intro_3.html

 

 

Besides a new variety of Waidan, the ☞ Cantong qialso influenced the formation of Neidan, whose earliest extant texts date from around 700 CE. The authors of several Neidan treatises refer to their doctrine as the Way of the Golden Elixir (jindan zhi dao). While they are often fond of stating that their tradition synthesizes the Three Teachings (sanjiao), i.e., Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the components of Neidan are actually much more numerous. Its texts borrow teachings from the Daode jing, vocabulary from the Zhuangzi, cosmological emblems from the Book of Changes, methods from early Daoist meditation, physiological practices (especially breathing) from the disciplines of Nourishing Life (yangsheng), views of the human body from traditional medicine, alchemical language from Waidan, doctrinal notions from Buddhism, and concepts from Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism. The borrowing occurs to different degrees of extent and depth according to the various subtraditions and their individual representatives.

The functions of these main components are clearly distinguished in the doctrinal treatises of Neidan. In particular, their authors point out that the Neidan teachings can only be understood in light of those of the Daode jing (which they call "the origin of the Way of the Golden Elixir"), and that cosmology provides "images" (xiang) that serve "to give form to the Formless by the word, and thus manifest the true and absolute Dao" (Li Daochun, late 13th century, in his Zhonghe ji, chapter 3). Alchemy, therefore, uses the language and images of correlative cosmology to explain the nature of the cosmos and its unity with the absolute principle that generates and regulates it. Its final purpose, however, is to "go beyond Yin and Yang": images and metaphors play and important value and function, but offer only temporary supports.

 

In Song and Yuan times (ca. late 10th-14th centuries), the history of Neidan identifies itself with the lines of transmission known as Nanzong (Southern Lineage) and Beizong (Northern Lineage). The beginner of Nanzong was Zhang Boduan (11th century), and the beginner of Beizong was Wang Chongyang (1112-1170). The textual foundation of the Southern Lineage was provided by the Wuzhen pian (Awakening to Reality), a work in poetry by Zhang Boduan. Both lineages placed emphasis on the cultivation of xing and ming, which constitute two central notions of Internal Alchemy. Xing refers to one's original Nature, deemed to be innately awakened but also obscured by the functioning of the mind in the conditioned state. Ming denotes the "imprint" that each individual entity receives upon being generated, and which may or may not be actualized in life due to one's interaction with the world through the body and the senses. The Northern and Southern lineages were distinguished by the relative priority given to either xing or ming in the context of their "conjoined cultivation" (shuangxiu).

 

and a download for those that want one:

 

https://deutsche-daoistische-vereinigung.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/The_Way_of_the_Golden_Elixir.pdf

 

 

 

In summary... Xing and Ming is a mix of Daoist and Buddhist practice...  Ergo, not really daoist in the end, IMO.  Just a modern mix. 

 

 

 

[dawei]

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

 

I find xing and ming difficult to remember and not really necessary, it's too much like dry learning for me. One of those 'people came along and made stuff up' moments sounds good to me. 

 

I tend to agree... avoid all talk of it and follow your own path. 

[Bindi]

It is possible that Waidan was a distorted understanding of an initial 'natural way' that had to be rediscerned again later from Waidan.

 

For example, if someone once talked about a mysterious Pearl and mercury and a cauldron and elixir and exact timing referring all the while to elements of  subtle body development according to inner vision, it's not unlikely that someone hearing this information might make up a method for concocting it all in an actual cauldron, somewhat like this from the Scripture of the Nine Elixirs: "Heat two pounds of Mysterious Pearl and twelve ounces of Nine [-cycled] Essence of Elixir-Lead in Vinegar of the Yellow and the White [huangbai zuowei ], for seven days and seven nights. When the compound coagulates and becomes white and stabilized, let it dry and remove its toxicity. It is used as “blanket and mat,” and no elixir will form in its absence." 

 

I was aware of these sort of images before I had ever heard of Daoism or Neidan, and it's taken me a long time to understand how things could have gotten so mixed up, but this is a possibility that accounts for my own personal experience of these images. In this paper the author states:

 

"The links among the Scripture of the Nine Elixirs, the Hugang zi corpus of texts, and the Cantong qi show that lead-mercury processes were practiced in southeastern China within a tradition that counted the Cantong qi among its sources. We know nothing about the history of this tradition during the Six Dynasties. The scarcity of contemporary related sources suggests that what may have started as a minor local lineage progressively acquired influence, and later came to affect the whole development of Chinese alchemy."

 

To my mind this makes perfect sense, there was a minor local lineage that practised a 'natural' psycho-spiritual way with the aid of someone who had inner vision, and this lineage was very early on corrupted into waidan, before people realised how devastating ingesting these chemicals was. Someone then figured out that the instructions were internal instructions, and the whole movement continued on from there in a much confused fashion which is what we have inherited today. 

[dawei]

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

 

Would you care to elaborate on your comment? Please  

 

Sorry... missed this... hate how I post and then don't look for responses

 

Linear is just a perception path.   Each path is actually according to the individual perception or outside force.

[Bindi]

 

 

8 minutes ago, dawei said:

 

Sorry... missed this... hate how I post and then don't look for responses

 

Linear is just a perception path.   Each path is actually according to the individual perception or outside force.

 

Do you mean linearity is both a strength and a weakness of neidan? I still don't understand what you mean exactly. 

[voidisyinyang]

27 minutes ago, Bindi said:

It is possible that Waidan was a distorted understanding of an initial 'natural way' that had to be rediscerned again later from Waidan.

 

For example, if someone once talked about a mysterious Pearl and mercury and a cauldron and elixir and exact timing referring all the while to elements of  subtle body development according to inner vision, it's not unlikely that someone hearing this information might make up a method for concocting it all in an actual cauldron, somewhat like this from the Scripture of the Nine Elixirs: "Heat two pounds of Mysterious Pearl and twelve ounces of Nine [-cycled] Essence of Elixir-Lead in Vinegar of the Yellow and the White [huangbai zuowei ], for seven days and seven nights. When the compound coagulates and becomes white and stabilized, let it dry and remove its toxicity. It is used as “blanket and mat,” and no elixir will form in its absence." 

 

I was aware of these sort of images before I had ever heard of Daoism or Neidan, and it's taken me a long time to understand how things could have gotten so mixed up, but this is a possibility that accounts for my own personal experience of these images. In this paper the author states:

 

"The links among the Scripture of the Nine Elixirs, the Hugang zi corpus of texts, and the Cantong qi show that lead-mercury processes were practiced in southeastern China within a tradition that counted the Cantong qi among its sources. We know nothing about the history of this tradition during the Six Dynasties. The scarcity of contemporary related sources suggests that what may have started as a minor local lineage progressively acquired influence, and later came to affect the whole development of Chinese alchemy."

 

To my mind this makes perfect sense, there was a minor local lineage that practised a 'natural' psycho-spiritual way with the aid of someone who had inner vision, and this lineage was very early on corrupted into waidan, before people realised how devastating ingesting these chemicals was. Someone then figured out that the instructions were internal instructions, and the whole movement continued on from there in a much confused fashion which is what we have inherited today. 

 

I corresponded with Pregadio - the problem is he relied on a Song dynasty version of the T'ai Chi that has a "static hub" as the Wuji. John Chang for example has never seen that "wuji" concept. The earlier Tang dynasty T'ai Chi symbol is just yin-yang throughout the process. Westerners cling to this "static hub" concept since it aligns with a deep Western bias towards materialistic geometry.

I corresponded with a Chinese professor of philosophy about this issue as well - Wuji was mistranslated into the West.

 

[dawei]

55 minutes ago, Bindi said:

Do you mean linearity is both a strength and a weakness of neidan? I still don't understand what you mean exactly. 

 

Linearity of the mind... which then extends to practices.  It seems to me it starts as a strength but in the end reveals the weakness... which reveals a strength, etc. 

[Bindi]

5 minutes ago, dawei said:

 

Linearity of the mind... which then extends to practices.  It seems to me it starts as a strength but in the end reveals the weakness... which reveals a strength, etc. 

 

Linear thinking/processing is Yang. It's weakness is the lack of Yin in the equation. Getting the balance right is itself the neidan process IMO. 

[voidisyinyang]

19 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 

Linear thinking/processing is Yang. It's weakness is the lack of Yin in the equation. Getting the balance right is itself the neidan process IMO. 

 

Quote

Xici, Appendix of Yijing, (3rd BCE) is first appearance of Taiji in an extant text. Change is the fundamental state, the exact opposite of Platonic metaphysics...The implication that taiji/bipolarity is somehow also nondual....Yin-yang qi is a manifestation of the unitary principle of bipolarity.

emphasis in original.

https://the-eye.eu/public/concen.org/Nonfiction.Ebook.SUNY.PRESS.Nov.2015-SLOWRO/SUNY Press.Reconstructing the Confucian Dao - Zhu Xi's Appropriation of Zhou Dunyi - Joseph A. Adler - (SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture).pdf

Edited August 23, 2018 by voidisyinyang

[voidisyinyang]

http://elixirfield.blogspot.com/2018/08/new-book-confirms-voidisyinyang-aka.html

 

for book images see my blog post.

 

Quote

This concerns the "nonduality" of yin-yang and stillness-activity pairs: the difference between them is real, but they are united in being the two inseparable poles of taiji.

ibid.

Quote

I use "nonduality" here in the sense of the yin-yang model: the difference between them is real, but they cannot exist separately and each implies the other. This differs from the advaita form of nondualism found in Sankara (eighth century CE), which is really monism (all differences are illusory).

ibid, emphasis in original.

His most recent book is Reconstructing the Confucian Dao: Zhu Xi's Appropriation of Zhou Dunyi (State University of New York Press, 2014).

https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/adler.htm

Joseph A. Adler (B.A., University of Rochester; M.A., Ph.D., University of California at Santa Barbara

Edited August 23, 2018 by voidisyinyang

[rideforever]

8 hours ago, Cheshire Cat said:

I don't need Jesus and he didn't care about me. 

 

Why do you say that ?

[rideforever]

7 hours ago, Marblehead said:

So if you are in for the game, come on over to my house and arrange to break one of your legs and I will promise you I will call an ambulance as soon as you have finished you meditation.

 

Yes Marblehead you are the only one on this planet who has problems.

[ilumairen]

7 hours ago, Marblehead said:

Oh!, all seeing one, I feel you have fucked up again.

 

Indubitably. 

[Lost in Translation]

Returning to this thread's subject: "Is non-duality actually a fundamental truth, or just another philosophy?"

 

I see no reason why the answer cannot be "both.". Yes, non-duality is truth because from a certain perspective there is only one. No, non-duality is false because from another point of view there are many and varied. The logical mind screams that this is a paradox. The paradox is only a problem if we believe that the logical mind is correct. I happen to believe that logic fails on this point.

 

Here's an exercise that I engaged in recently: Sitting in my yard, I was meditating in silence. I took my consciousness, my being and all my perceptions, and I shrunk it down into the body of an ant. (Using my imagination and powers of visualization) I saw myself among the other ants in the garden. Immediately I was struck by a thought: These ants operate according to a program! They live, they move. In their own way they have community and love. But they are operating according to fixed parameters of which they are unaware and cannot escape. Then I expanded my awareness back into my own body. I saw my own life, my own though. I saw my own community, my own love and way of being. And I also saw that I, too, operate according to a program. I, too, operate according to fixed parameters of which I, too, am unaware and cannot escape! One of these parameters happens to be the inability to embrace paradox.

 

So, yes, non-duality is fundamental truth and it is also just another philosophy. It makes no sense to say this, but that is just because my programming says so. Unity - and multiplicity - I am sure, is not bound by such small thinking.

[Cheshire Cat]

1 hour ago, rideforever said:

 

Why do you say that ?

 

Why not? 

[rideforever]

1 hour ago, Cheshire Cat said:

Why not? 

 

I am asking you, you say Jesus never cared about you.   Did you have some experience ?

[Cheshire Cat]

40 minutes ago, rideforever said:

 

I am asking you, you say Jesus never cared about you.   Did you have some experience ?

 

Jesus cared about me as much as Alexander the Great did. 

The reasons are pretty much the same: different hairstyles, different languages and 2000+ years of history. 

Edited August 23, 2018 by Cheshire Cat

[rideforever]

33 minutes ago, Cheshire Cat said:

 

 

From "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965).  Jesus stands before Pilate.

 

P : "You claim to be the son of God ... which one ?  Mars, Hercules, Jupiter ?  Which God are you the son of ?"

J : "The Lord our God is one."

P : "One, for all people ?  For Romans as well ?"

J : "All nations shall be gathered before him.   He loves you no less than he loves others."

P : "- Then why have I not known him ?"

J : "You have not looked for him."
 

[wandelaar]

@ LiT

 

I will not join in this discussion again, but I have two things to say:

 

1. Modern philosophical logic is a huge discipline where all sorts of reasoning are investigated including paradoxical ones. See for instance the work of Graham Priest. So I wouldn't say something is beyond logical thought simply because it is beyond old school Aristotelian logic.

 

2. The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths is a very rational doctrine that simultaneously accommodates your two perspectives.

[Apech]

7 hours ago, dawei said:

um...  don't find that.  Now I'm forced to give some links.

 

http://www.goldenelixir.com/jindan/jindan_intro_3.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and a download for those that want one:

 

https://deutsche-daoistische-vereinigung.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/The_Way_of_the_Golden_Elixir.pdf

 

 

 

In summary... Xing and Ming is a mix of Daoist and Buddhist practice...  Ergo, not really daoist in the end, IMO.  Just a modern mix. 

 

 

 

 

My copy of the Seal of the Unity of Three suggests the earliest date for the Cantong qi of Han dynasty - this text is said to be the beginning of a implicit Nei Dan tradition - but of course there are no explicit nei dan texts until around 700 AD as you say.  But you said you don't trust anything before  500 AD so I was trying to work out which texts or schools you mean.  That was the reason for my post.

 

I agree that there was Buddhist influence in later texts.  But then I quoted earlier a book which hints at least that the Buddhist yoga/tantra practices were influenced by Daoist Internal Alchemy.

 

in calling this 'just a modern mix' what exactly are you relying on as authentic?  That's what I'm getting at and don't understand.

[Apech]

7 hours ago, Bindi said:

It is possible that Waidan was a distorted understanding of an initial 'natural way' that had to be rediscerned again later from Waidan.

 

For example, if someone once talked about a mysterious Pearl and mercury and a cauldron and elixir and exact timing referring all the while to elements of  subtle body development according to inner vision, it's not unlikely that someone hearing this information might make up a method for concocting it all in an actual cauldron, somewhat like this from the Scripture of the Nine Elixirs: "Heat two pounds of Mysterious Pearl and twelve ounces of Nine [-cycled] Essence of Elixir-Lead in Vinegar of the Yellow and the White [huangbai zuowei ], for seven days and seven nights. When the compound coagulates and becomes white and stabilized, let it dry and remove its toxicity. It is used as “blanket and mat,” and no elixir will form in its absence." 

 

I was aware of these sort of images before I had ever heard of Daoism or Neidan, and it's taken me a long time to understand how things could have gotten so mixed up, but this is a possibility that accounts for my own personal experience of these images. In this paper the author states:

 

"The links among the Scripture of the Nine Elixirs, the Hugang zi corpus of texts, and the Cantong qi show that lead-mercury processes were practiced in southeastern China within a tradition that counted the Cantong qi among its sources. We know nothing about the history of this tradition during the Six Dynasties. The scarcity of contemporary related sources suggests that what may have started as a minor local lineage progressively acquired influence, and later came to affect the whole development of Chinese alchemy."

 

To my mind this makes perfect sense, there was a minor local lineage that practised a 'natural' psycho-spiritual way with the aid of someone who had inner vision, and this lineage was very early on corrupted into waidan, before people realised how devastating ingesting these chemicals was. Someone then figured out that the instructions were internal instructions, and the whole movement continued on from there in a much confused fashion which is what we have inherited today. 

 

Sounds plausible to me.  In fact I have always thought that the WaiDan/nei dan tradition came from a single source which was both/neither - if you see what I mean.

[Cheshire Cat]

30 minutes ago, rideforever said:

 

From "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965).  Jesus stands before Pilate.

 

P : "You claim to be the son of God ... which one ?  Mars, Hercules, Jupiter ?  Which God are you the son of ?"

J : "The Lord our God is one."

P : "One, for all people ?  For Romans as well ?"

J : "All nations shall be gathered before him.   He loves you no less than he loves others."

P : "- Then why have I not known him ?"

J : "You have not looked for him."
 

 

I sincerely hope that - if he still exists--the God of War described in Bible doesn't even think about me. 

 

Jesus? 

No, thank you 

[rideforever]

9 minutes ago, Cheshire Cat said:

 

 

25“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27“And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28“And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31“Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32“For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

34“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

 

 

I am a meditator first and Christian second, but I find no fault in his beautiful words.