Neidan ( all experiences and opinions wanted)

[freeform]

1 hour ago, Taoist Texts said:

Qiu and Ma. No, i dont believe in teachers. Only patriarchs.

 

Ah so you’re also Dragon gate.

 

And you managed to get somewhere just practicing from classical writings? I’m impressed - but then again I find the classics quite impenetrable without guidance.

 

Why the anti-teacher stance? Have you been burned by a teacher in the past?

[Taoist Texts]

51 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

Ah so you’re also Dragon gate.

You can say that, but i follow the patriarchs and obvously they did not call themselves as Longmen or Yuxian

51 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

And you managed to get somewhere just practicing from classical writings?

Certainly, thats the reason they were written.

51 minutes ago, freeform said:

I’m impressed - but then again I find the classics quite impenetrable without guidance.

Its all about the attitude)

51 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

Why the anti-teacher stance? Have you been burned by a teacher in the past?

No, not personally. I have nothing against a genuine teacher in principle, its just there are no attained teachers at all  nowadays (except myself of course).I posted on  this issue

 

[voidisyinyang]

8 hours ago, Apech said:

 

Its the preparation stage but not actually the alchemy.  For most people but not everyone, it is necessary and anyone writing a book on Nei Dan is going to mention it but it does not mean it is part of the actual process in the sense of generating the pill and so on.

So you really have not studied the book Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and IMmortality have you? That's o.k. Others reading my posts to you might actually study the book. haha. Dream on though!

[voidisyinyang]

1 hour ago, Taoist Texts said:

You can say that, but i follow the patriarchs and obvously they did not call themselves as Longmen or Yuxian

Certainly, thats the reason they were written.

Its all about the attitude)

No, not personally. I have nothing against a genuine teacher in principle, its just there are no attained teachers at all  nowadays (except myself of course).I posted on  this issue

 

 

So you've never experienced a laser Shen holographic "healing" from a qigong master? You really think Master Jiang was "fake" even though you've never watched his videos? Oh well. I'm not saying you haven't achieved this on your own. I'm just saying these "laser" burning effects are real - and so is the "long distance" energy real.

 

You say - "for me" it is real. Yes the Emptiness can only be logically inferred - whereas the "observer" is just an after-effect, in the past. Hence the paradox of "Shen of No Shen." It is explained by music theory as nonlocal non-commutative phase - but since you posted you think the Tao Te ching is simply a political tract? Really? haha. The 2, 3, infinity secret of the Tao Te Ching actually is music theory as (insert your fancy Chinese word of choice).

 

What about those healed by qigong master Yan Xin - when he spoke a different dialect of Chinese and so the masses could not even understand him? haha. Certainly doing good Chinese translation and study is very helpful but the wisdom of the Heart is from the Emptiness directly - so a person can just logically infer the proper training and proper results. Yes it is very dangerous. As qigong master Jim Nance http://guidingqi.com told me - for him:

 

Quote

Every day is a life and death struggle

 

[Taoist Texts]

8 minutes ago, voidisyinyang said:

I'm not saying you haven't achieved this on your own. 

I definitely have not achieved this.

 

12 minutes ago, voidisyinyang said:

since you posted you think the Tao Te ching is simply a political tract? Really? haha. The 2, 3, infinity secret of the Tao Te Ching actually is music

 

14 minutes ago, voidisyinyang said:

the wisdom of the Heart is from the Emptiness directly

 

Amen to that padre.

 

[Apech]

1 hour ago, voidisyinyang said:

So you really have not studied the book Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and IMmortality have you? That's o.k. Others reading my posts to you might actually study the book. haha. Dream on though!

 

 

I studied when I was 18/19 at University and reread it about ten years ago.  Since then i have studied other texts

.

Edited December 24, 2018 by Apech

[mrpasserby]

On 12/22/2018 at 4:48 AM, Apech said:

 

I think we need to be precise about this.  It is true that we are all composed if you like of spirit which is immortal (i.e. eternal) it is not true that we are inherently immortal spirits in the sense of the result of alchemical work.  If this were true there would be no alchemical work - which is not in itself proof of the point but simply a pointer to the inadequacy of the simplistic view that we are all immortal anyway.

 

Our natural beings are composed of an 'assembly' of entities most notably the hun and po souls which return to heaven and earth respectively at death.  If we rely on nature then there is another risk - which in another system is called 'the second death' which is the dissolution of the heavenly energies back to their root and thus the being dissolves back into eternity - ceasing to have any manifest existence at any level at all.  If the work is complete and the golden foetus is created and developed then the second death is avoided.  There are degrees to which this is true.  Some very accomplished beings may achieve this at a spiritual level but still physically die.  Some achieve such a high level of integration that their physical bodies transform to one degree or another.  And so on.  This is by the way independent of which system is practiced - although some systems may be more 'living' than others.

 

Becoming spiritually immortal is not to become a god, if gods are understood to be the personified aspects of the eternal field of spiritual energy - they are naturally occurring in a sense - whereas the alchemical immortal is something else.

Thanks, you have stated it so clearly. 

[mrpasserby]

On 12/22/2018 at 1:53 PM, Wu Ming Jen said:

To revel the secrets entrusted personally by a master is forbidden. Life destiny is very important to get in the way or misdirect someones life by not knowing them in person is damaging

 

The internet is not the platform for reveling methods except in general terms Transmission is from master to disciple. 

 

Thank you very much, I have never been able to put it into words. 

[Desmonddf]

I find it amusing how Daoists believe there is no "immortal soul" but many do believe in the existence of ghosts and spirits of the dead...

Or how people disregard the Ego and Conscienciousness as a mix of Shen, Hun and Pi, and then think that, as long as you don't have Zhi and Po, you'll disappear. Or that Shen and Pi disappear as well.

 

"Something" who used to be "someone" can think for itself, is conscious of its state and reactive to the environment. It doesn't feel impulses coming from the body (like procriation, eating or run-or-fight instinct), nor bodly sensations. That's the only difference between it and me and you. Can it really be called "not who he was"? "Not someone's soul"? 

Anyhow.

Neidan is a name without a definite meaning. It can be understood as a mass of bobbling pride-and-arrogance which has been feeding on peoples "wants" through the years (especially since the cult-witch-hunt made yoga less popular on the USA, opening a new market for mystical experiences), and can be acessed through this name, or as the form people refeer to some texts and ideas - which usually don't have much in common.

 

There is no single official means of enforcing the meaning of "neidan", so anyone is free to call anything they want by this name.

Edited December 26, 2018 by Desmonddf

[Apech]

1 hour ago, Desmonddf said:

I find it amusing how Daoists believe there is no "immortal soul" but many do believe in the existence of ghosts and spirits of the dead...

Or how people disregard the Ego and Conscienciousness as a mix of Shen, Hun and Pi, and then think that, as long as you don't have Zhi and Po, you'll disappear. Or that Shen and Pi disappear as well.

 

"Something" who used to be "someone" can think for itself, is conscious of its state and reactive to the environment. It doesn't feel impulses coming from the body (like procriation, eating or run-or-fight instinct), nor bodly sensations. That's the only difference between it and me and you. Can it really be called "not who he was"? "Not someone's soul"? 

Anyhow.

Neidan is a name without a definite meaning. It can be understood as a mass of bobbling pride-and-arrogance which has been feeding on peoples "wants" through the years (especially since the cult-witch-hunt made yoga less popular on the USA, opening a new market for mystical experiences), and can be acessed through this name, or as the form people refeer to some texts and ideas - which usually don't have much in common.

 

There is no single official means of enforcing the meaning of "neidan", so anyone is free to call anything they want by this name.

 

Do you think the meaning of words needs to be enforced?  

 

 

[Rocky Lionmouth]

13 hours ago, Apech said:

 

Do you think the meaning of words needs to be enforced?  

 

 

 

Que the market recruitment drive

 

Linguistic Enforces Wanted!

 

Are you physically encumbering, strong and have an air of quiet intimidation? 

Do you know the ins and outs of making sure people follow up on their promises and honor their words?

Do you know the layout of semantic labyrinths as well as the back of your hand, which incidentally is also well weathered from slapping backtalkers around? 

 

Then you are the person we seek!

Inquire at Human Resources Dept through our website:

www.greatclarityoflanguage.com 

Enforced Meaning Inc., a subsidiary of Blackwater Paramilitary

[freeform]

On 24/12/2018 at 4:32 PM, Taoist Texts said:

Certainly, thats the reason they were written.

 

 

That was in answer to whether you got somewhere with Nei Dan as practiced solely from the scriptures.

 

Could you share your experience? Maybe you already have?

[rideforever]

On 26/12/2018 at 5:57 PM, Desmonddf said:

There is no single official means of enforcing the meaning of "neidan", so anyone is free to call anything they want by this name.

 

Human beings are very uninterested in spiritual realisation and they tend to join in (out of boredom or hidden malice) but change one thing about the practices so that they don't work.  They would be shocked and terrified if it did work.  And this changing on one thing after another continues until the tradition is completely destroyed ... and undifferentiable from the chaos of the world.   

 

Humans in general use their abilities to disorder anything that was ordered, to bring pain to anything that had given health, to bring what is unnatural to that which was natural.  And in time everything that was good vanishes.  Humans are masters of bringing grey to what was white and black, they are artists of corruption. 

 

Until another being arises who creates order in this world and it shines like a lighthouse for a few years before it attracts attention, and then the bricks of the lighthouse are once again pulled out one by one.  Until there is nothing left, except glee.

 

It is true that anyone who wants to find something will find it.

Most do not find.

 

Why do humans do this mess ?   Because they are learning ?   Because they are attracted to nourishment and by consuming it they destroy it ?  Because they hate anything that reminds them of their pain ?   Because they don't understand ?

 

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by rideforever

[Taoist Texts]

8 hours ago, freeform said:

Could you share your experience?

the experience is called 'creating the elixir'. The elixir does not do anything except giving you the sense of a long life.

[Fa Xin]

1 hour ago, Taoist Texts said:

the experience is called 'creating the elixir'. The elixir does not do anything except giving you the sense of a long life.

 

All the experience of being an immortal, and none of the responsibility of paying off my student loans.  What's there not to like?

[Desmonddf]

On 26/12/2018 at 4:59 PM, Apech said:

 

Do you think the meaning of words needs to be enforced?  

 

 

 

If you want for them to mean the same thing for everyone... then yes. 

 

The french do it already. They have a whole bureau dedicated to keeping the french language the same through the generations. 

 

It's like this : If you want to know the "real meaning" of something, that thing will only have a real and official meaning if it is recognized as such and enforced as well. 

 

Otherwise, anyone can give any meaning they want for any word. People LOVE to do that to polemic terms and words, and then use them for mass manipulation. 

 

Words like "communism", "capitalism", "honor", "patriotism", etc. are used freely to play with people's emotions for one's own agenda.

 

The same thing happened with "yoga" and is now happening to "qigong" and "neigong". The things one can read around...

[Rocky Lionmouth]

4 hours ago, Desmonddf said:

The french do it already. They have a whole bureau dedicated to keeping the french language the same through the generations. 

 

For real? Wow. Thats, uh, interesting. I’ll have to check it out to see to what extent they do that and how. My paranoid side is currently immagining a shadow department who run blacksites where they imprison modern dadaists, dyslectics, those who make puns that are not grammatically correct and regular people who have an inventive or laissez-faire attitude towards language.

 

 

Wait, oh shit, did i spell laissez-faire correctly? Theres been frequent footsteps at the door but not a single sound from the neighbours on my floor, which is odd... how long has it been? Did the lightbulb in the staircase really stop functioning since i got home or are they out there? I hear syncopated polyrythmically blended cadences in rushed phrases. Tactical boots under riot gear?

Or is it just my two elderly neighbours exercising their shuffling gait?

Was that a double burst of comms noise? Did iust see the knob twitch ever so slightly?!

Maybe not. No. I hear it. Drums! Drums in the deep!

There is not much time.

They are comingg

 

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by Rocky Lionmouth

[wandelaar]

 

[freeform]

The deeper I get into the Daoist arts the more I recognise just how specific the terms being used are and just how literal some of the things described can be.

 

The issue is that the cultural and philosophical background of the East is very different to that of the West.

 

It can be boiled down to the verb “to be” - or “is”.

 

This is a fundamental thing in the western mind and comes all the way from the faulty logic of Aristotle. So you can say “the grass is green” and everyone would agree.

 

But the reality is that it’s actually very context dependent... would the grass still be green under a red light? Or as seen through colour-blind eyes? 

 

This Aristotelian logic is always colouring our way of thinking and is pretty much invisible. That’s why we get so hung up on “what is Qi!?”

 

In the Eastern mind this isn’t so much an issue because in this mentality it’s all about context! The Eastern way of thinking is not hunting for an objective ‘isness’ but it is always hunting for context.

 

I work in design, and have read several research studies on how people perceive images. Using eyetracking they present an image and track what part of the image the observer looks at. Say it’s a photo of a tiger... In the West the tendency is for the focus to be solely on the tiger and particularly its face, in the East the tendency is for the eyes to check the background as much as the tiger itself... is the tiger in a zoo or in a jungle - to an Eastern mind that’s just as important as the tiger itself.

 

So although the western mindset has major issues with the fact that “Qi” means so many different things depending on context... to an eastern mindset that’s just completely natural! 

 

Wandelaar - this is another reason why the scientific approach to studying Qi will be very difficult because there is the Qi of feng shui, the Qi of qigong, the Qi of taiji - and they are all completely and fundamentally different.

 

Mind you, we do have this in West too - you might call your wife ‘sugar’ but you (hopefully) won’t try to bake her into a cake. But in the East this contextuality is at the fundamental level of all mental models and ways of thinking - let alone colloquial language.

[freeform]

There is another deeply ingrained western philosophical stance that hinders us in the internal arts (and in life too!)... anyone care to guess what that is?

[freeform]

On 28/12/2018 at 4:08 AM, Taoist Texts said:

the experience is called 'creating the elixir'. The elixir does not do anything except giving you the sense of a long life.

 

Just to bring it down to my current (lowly) level of practice so I understand...

 

I’m assuming you’ve managed fully open you microcosmic orbit... could you share what (physical/physiological) changes you experienced at that level of practice?

[wandelaar]

@ freeform

 

Asking the right question is already half of the solution! Thus "What is chi?" could very well be the wrong question for understanding its use in the Chinese context. In the context of the (classical) Chinese world view the use of the word chi is considered correct when it positively contributes to living one's life and dealing with the world. The verification of the appropriateness of the term is thus purely pragmatic, and that's why the question whether there really is something called chi in the (classical) Chinese context becomes irrelevant. Thus for me there seem to be two approaches to get a handle on chi:

 

1. Adopting the (classical) Chinese perspective.

2. Analysing how operating with the term "chi" works out on living one's life within the context of the (classical) Chinese world view.

 

Unhappily there is just too much nonsense and mumbo jumbo in the classical Chinese perspective for me to wholeheartedly adopt 1. I didn't stop to believe in Western fairy tales to switch over to the Chinese version of make believe. So for me it will have to be 2.

 

Edited December 29, 2018 by wandelaar

[freeform]

38 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

Unhappily there is just too much nonsense and mumbo jumbo in the classical Chinese perspective for me to wholeheartedly adopt 1.

 

Firstly what may look like mumbo jumbo from your perspective may be quite ‘logical’ from a perspective who’s fundamental approach and way of thinking is completely different.

 

Theoretical physics is also complete nonsence and mumbo jumbo... until it isn’t.

 

This is the thing I’m recognising more and more.

 

These ideas and concepts of Qi seem so vague and woolly to the western mentality. 

 

But the reality is that in their proper context, these terms are very specific and quite black and white.

 

The internal arts are ‘operational’ and pragmatic - they’re more like engineering than science. They’re not trying to discover the truth about something in the same way as science. They’re trying to affect internal change - and the mental models, terms and ideas are designed for that specific purpose - not for the purpose of deducing ‘truth’.

 

The models aren’t Daoism - the internal results are.

 

The idea is not to create ‘beliefs’ or even to ‘understand’, but  to communicate a process of internal development. 

 

These texts are often like operational instructions. ‘Understanding’ comes when you’ve put the instructions into practice. And this level of understanding is fully embodied - not just mental (but there is certainly a mental component).

 

That’s why when one attempts to communicate these embodied results into words, you just get a string of (often fascinating, sometimes nonsensical) paradoxes.

 

Now - puting these instructions into practice is a difficult, intensive process - this is not ‘ordinary’ stuff - there is a lot of subtlety and countless pitfalls along the path. It is certainly not for everybody. But I believe that if you have an interest in Daoism - even if you don’t wish to undertake the challenge of putting them into practice - it’s worth understanding that that’s how it all works.

[wandelaar]

7 minutes ago, freeform said:

But I believe that if you have an interest in Daoism - even if you don’t wish to undertake the challenge of putting them into practice - it’s worth understanding that that’s how it all works.

 

That could well be the case - but if so than it should also be possible to understand what is happening on the basis of (western) science. Probably biofeedback and suggestion are involved, but I am not yet clear about that.

[freeform]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

if so than it should also be possible to understand what is happening on the basis of (western) science.

 

Absolutely agree. 

 

But consider the difficulty of firstly achieving these results, let alone testing them scientifically - and in a way that doesn’t kill the poor subject.

 

For example - we’ve had science for a while now... we’ve had human bodies for much longer... yet only very recently we discovered a whole new organ system that we had no idea about (the interstitium).

 

Just because something can be researched and understood in a scientific way doesn’t mean it has or even will...

 

I’ve asked one of my teachers about this... he has quite clear, physical signs of development.

 

For example he has what feels like a physical, solid structure in his belly - he can move it around in his abdominal cavity. He thinks it’s made of connective tissue at the moment. He can project Qi that affects people and animals in a predictable(ish) way. He’s extremely heavy, but not big or muscly - he says it’s because all the spaces in his body have become filled with dense connective tissue. He can move his limbs with almost no muscular engagement...

 

All these things could be tested in some way scientifically.

 

Many students have asked why he won’t go in for scientific testing. He has several very good reasons. 1) Testing him scientificall will prove nothing other than he’s an anomaly. 2) It would attract attention he doesn’t want. 3) It would mean time out of practice. 4) Potentially detrimental effects of biopsies and scans could affect his subtle level of practice.