Taoist meditation

[Mudfoot]

5 hours ago, voidisyinyang said:

There is a story of the alchemist visiting the tantric who enjoyed longevity and health - but after the alchemist taught him the truth, then the tantric spit up all this silver liquid. His longevity and health were the silver mercury as yang qi - that had not be purified by the Spirit in the third eye.

Yes, when someone feels intimidated by another tradition then that one makes up a denigrating story. 

 

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The left eye is the Sun as yang shen but it is also yin qi as wood, the liver. So at first the red dragon goes down into the black tiger to then rise up as the green dragon hidden in the white tiger - manifesting as yang qi - silver lunar energy - blue-white. So the blue light as the yang qi is the right eye as metal but with the yin shen as the Moon. 

Google translate haven't developed the Nei Dan to english function yet, so I will have to wait a while to appreciate this. 

Edited December 26, 2018 by Mudfoot
Removed wrong conclusion

[wandelaar]

5 hours ago, vonkrankenhaus said:

 

Qi is just the movement between the poles of any polarity. Like heat, electricity, etc.

 

It is not any substance, mystical or otherwise, and not any more of an " (sub)culturally induced experience" than Hot/Cold, Wet/Dry, Active/Inactive, etc.

Turn on any faucet - you found Qi.

Get up in the morning - you found Qi.

Inhale and Exhale - you found Qi.

How can we not?

 

Not hard to find. Not hard to understand. Qi is movement. All movement is Yang. Qi in thermodynamics is hot air, and in electricity, it is moving electrons.

 

In Qigong, in the body - there are several polarities working. Study means knowing what these are and how to alter. Techniques. First building a basis by much Gongfu and listening to teachers and study. You can live your whole life and be studying this too.

 

1800s/early 1900s Western academics write crazy translations because they never understood TaiJi philosophy. They just looked for "okay" words to use. Racists too. Check out book by "The Religious Systems of China" by JJM de Groot from 100 yrs ago to see what I mean. Rockefeller organization pays them all, then creates "TCM" with Mao in 1950-53. No wonder there is doubt and debate about "acupuncture" today. It was designed into system.

 

Too much is missing from the "marketplace" for anyone to reconstitute what they are trying to find. People see movie and have fantasies and read books written by people who want money, and then the news and journalist write about this because they want money too. Soon, someone hears about this and opens a fake school because they think it can make them money.

Nobody understands Qi today, even though it is so simple. They refuse. They want to do or debunk things that never happen.

 

Nobody understands YinYang or the rest of TaiJi philosophy either. This is the very basis.

Without this - you don't even understand "Light and Dark", never mind Chinese philosophy and medicine.

 

And without that, you are doing some kind of calisthenics, or having a fantasy, and arguing with each other about details of fictions, or even debunking "heat" and saying doesn't exist - too "mystical" or not mystical enough - people who don't know are never satisfied.  

 

Classics and authentic teachers and your own virtue are the only way. Both first ones mentioned still exist. All it takes is people who can understand these to know how important. Others may be cutting corners off something that doesn't exist and end up debating nonsense videos and tricksters on and on and on.

 

I am just giving an observation from 1970 to now, looking from where I started as a child, to adult. Not meaning to offend anyone or claim superior or anything like that. Just some observation and opinion.

 

 

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

 

Thank you. You may be right or you may be wrong. At this point I am not able to tell what's the case, and I am not willing to invest years of study and practice to experience something (chi ) that may not even exist. For instance I also don't believe in aura's, chakra's, reincarnation, or Gods, but I do believe that people are able to induce experiences in themselves that correspond to them. The human mind is very suggestible. Without methods to objectively test such experiences their value as a form of observation is doubtful at best. Even sensory observation has known errors. That's why one has to test one's conclusions by different methods to avoid drifting off into fantasy worlds. The latter doesn't "resonate" with me.

[rideforever]

21 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

The latter doesn't "resonate" with me.

 

What is it that you do trust or consider objective ?

 

[wandelaar]

5 hours ago, Mudfoot said:

Good point! 

There is a difference between experience and interpretation, and since the mind interprete as we go and try to fit that interpretation into a known world view, there is a lot of bias here. 

 

For myself, I could divide my experiences in two groups: explainable by physiology, and currently stuff I cannot explain. 

 

You might find that with some practice, you can improve your ability of sensing what is going on inside, and you can learn to manipulate functions in your autonomic nervous system. 

And you can call that "qi" if you like, or use words from cognitive psychology or physiology. 

 

Agreed. One has an inner sense about bodily function. And I take note of that because of its relevance to my health. There are also all kind of transitory feelings that I don't know how to interpret, and those I ignore. I have no doubt that by concentrating on the transitory feelings one can build them up into a whole area of "chi experiences", but as long as they don't relate to something verifiable those experiences are not to be interpreted as observations of something but rather as the results of prolonged (self)suggestion guided by (sub)cultural expectations of what one is supposed to experience.

 

5 hours ago, Mudfoot said:

And then it is the other group, which might be a form of induced mass delusion. 😁 

Feels good though. 

 

Yes! 

 

Unless they are your own, and you find them meaningful to you personally. 

 

Meaningful to me is what is real, and that isn't personal. I date from before the post-truth generation.

[Mudfoot]

19 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

 

Meaningful to me is what is real, and that isn't personal. I date from before the post-truth generation.

The first and the second sentence do not really relate. 

Real might not be personal, or at least I will not go in to that one since I am weak at philosophy. Meaning, as in the meaning you subscribe to a thing or event, is highly personal. 

 

And since many people, cross generations way back, have found meaning in religion and religious experience, your age would not matter. 

 

None of this say that you as an individual have to find meaning in meditation, religion, philosophy, or physics for that matter. 

 

Short question though:Isn't it hard to have an interest in Daoist stuff while at the same time find some of the (core) aspects devoid of meaning? 

[Mudfoot]

29 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

but as long as they don't relate to something verifiable 

So you have done a deep study on physiology then, specifically on the regulatory part of the autonomic nervous system and how it relates to the vascular system? 

And you do not think that you can explain a fair amount of basic "qi" sensations through this? 

 

Cool 😎..... 

[wandelaar]

10 minutes ago, Mudfoot said:

Short question though:Isn't it hard to have an interest in Daoist stuff while at the same time find some of the (core) aspects devoid of meaning? 

 

That's why I consider myself a philosophical Taoist.

[wandelaar]

7 minutes ago, Mudfoot said:

So you have done a deep study on physiology then, specifically on the regulatory part of the autonomic nervous system and how it relates to the vascular system? 

And you do not think that you can explain a fair amount of basic "qi" sensations through this? 

 

Cool 😎..... 

 

I would definitely applaud explanations of chi in terms of western physiology, but all I am told here is that I should avoid the application of western science and should do away with intellectual considerations...

[Mudfoot]

Just now, wandelaar said:

 

I would definitely applaud explanations of chi in terms of western physiology, but all I am told here is that I should avoid the application of western science and should do away with intellectual considerations...

I would not call it an explanation of qi, I would call it physiological explanations of sensations you sense in you body, sensations that becomes more evident with proper practice. That chinese dudes included this in the concept "qi" is just a cultural thing. 

[Zen Pig]

On 12/14/2018 at 5:24 PM, wandelaar said:

your description is crystal clear. I could do that. But I can't do both

This is only natural.  so called "doing both" will come in time. it cannot be forced, just focus on the hara/tanden, watch the breath, and at some point, might take a few years,  the breath will be seen like everything else in awareness, like sitting feeling the wind , smelling the rain, listening to birds, breathing, it all becomes an unfolding, all one thing, so to speak.  this is where words suck.  one just has to sit, and keep sitting.  no instant rewards.  good luck

[wandelaar]

11 minutes ago, Mudfoot said:

I would not call it an explanation of qi, I would call it physiological explanations of sensations you sense in you body, sensations that becomes more evident with proper practice. That chinese dudes included this in the concept "qi" is just a cultural thing. 

 

Correct! Do you have a link that provides such a western explanation of what Chinese dudes (and their followers) are feeling and accomplishing?

[Mudfoot]

I'll pm you. 

[rideforever]

29 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

western science

 

The greatest Western scientists Newton did more work on alchemy than on gravity.   

Perhaps it is uncomfortable to hear that; this fact has been buried for hundreds of years and only recently came to light.

Do you know that Niels Bohr's first son was called Christian ?   
That Max Planck was Luteran, that Galileo was a devoted Catholic ?

Do you know that Einstein Tesla and Turing all believed in a non-human centered intelligence and universal meaning ?
Do you know what the word "Western" refers to ?
What you seem to accept is not "Western" it is materialist.

When the most important things in your life, identity consciousness love, are not materialistic, how intelligent is it to continue being materialist.

Do you know that the constants used in "science" are not constant when measured experimentally, and that votes are taken in order to agree on values to be used in equations.
Again it is uncomfortable.
Do you know that for every scientific "theory" there are many other theories and that the "accepted" theory often changes ?
Do you know that travel faster that light is not prohibited by an relativistic theories ?
Do you know, or do you imagine you know ?
Do you cling to something you imagine is solid ?
 

[OldDog]

17 hours ago, wandelaar said:

But as long as objective tests and rational analysis are banned ...

 

It's not that they are banned ... it's that some things can not be grasp through rational analysis.

 

Is it not possible to concieved that there are more ways of inquiry and study than rational analysis? If one insists that all things must yield to rational analysis, then one is closed off from anything that does not fit the rational paradigm. 

 

This point is at the core of Daoism. Daoism posits that the Dao is omnipresent/ubiquitous ... that it is inherent in each of us.  But why do we find such a concept so hard to accept? Precisely because it is something that the rational mind has trouble dealing with. The rational mind seeks to analyze, break things down into parts, distinguish one thing from another. This is dualistic thinking. By its very definition ... using a dualistic figure of speech ... Dao is otherwise. Ineffable. Cannot be named. If such a thing does exist, how can it be approached? By shutting down the dualistic mind.

 

This is not the same thing as banned. It is exactly the opposite. It is choosing not to use the tool of the rational mind to pursue the inquiry ... in just the same way as choosing not to use a hammer to fullfil the function of a screwdriver. We don't throw the hammer away because it can't turn a screw. Likewise we don't throw the rational mind away because it can not access some things. The beauty of the rational mind is that it can choose not to be employed.

 

Dao is an extreme example. Qi is another / closer example of something that needs a different tool work it. 

 

Now, none of this is to say that rational mind can't make use of the awareness of qi ... or dao ... as we go about the business of living. Just don't expect to rationalize it ... analyze it ... measure it ... in the conventional way. 

 

 

Edited December 26, 2018 by OldDog
Grammar

[wandelaar]

I have no problem at all in understanding the Tao rationally. How? Thus:

 

The foundation of all things cannot be a thing itself, for than it would be just one of those things. So it is a non-thing that nevertheless somehow exists. And this is exactly what Lao tzu is saying. The Laws of Nature as explored by physics are a good example of this kind of existence: they also are not things but nevertheless exist. Scientific thought and logical analysis weren't as well developed in ancient times as they are today, and that's why Lao tzu and Chuang tzu didn't better appreciate them in their own time. This is why I feel comfortable with the knowledge of today in disagreeing with them on this one point of the relevance of rational thought and analysis.

[rideforever]

6 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

Scientific thought and logical analysis weren't as well developed in ancient times as they are today,

 

Weren't they ?   It is only this current generation that is destroying the soils that it feeds from.   It is a kind of insanity.   In previous times they were less dramatic as we are, but does that mean less intelligent ?

 

7 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

The foundation of all things cannot be a thing itself, for than it would be just one of those things

 

One of which things ?

What is it you are looking when you say the "foundation" things, and you say it cannot be thing in itself ?
What does that mean ?

If you cut up a cat into a million pieces, do you think you will know it better or are you just very insensitive to life ?

[sustainablefarm86]

Qi... practical route... someone with demonstrable potential here in the forum could theoretically light you up remotely no?

 

 

 

 

[doc benway]

11 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

I have no problem at all in understanding the Tao rationally. How? Thus:

 

The foundation of all things cannot be a thing itself, for than it would be just one of those things. So it is a non-thing that nevertheless somehow exists. And this is exactly what Lao tzu is saying. The Laws of Nature as explored by physics are a good example of this kind of existence: they also are not things but nevertheless exist.

And what exactly does that get you?

Is this the only point Laozi is making?

What about the other 1400 texts that make up the Daozang?

 

 

11 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

Scientific thought and logical analysis weren't as well developed in ancient times as they are today, and that's why Lao tzu and Chuang tzu didn't better appreciate them in their own time.

I disagree.

Technology was not as well developed but thought and analysis were arguable more effective as there was no technology to rely upon. The achievements of the early Daoists, not to mention Buddhists and other cultures, in the absence of such technological support was profound. Human intellect was every bit as well developed then. The reason they weren't emphasized (appreciated is the wrong word) is because the true lessons of Daoism transcend the intellect. If you choose not to see that, it is your loss.

 

11 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

This is why I feel comfortable with the knowledge of today in disagreeing with them on this one point of the relevance of rational thought and analysis.

It is nice to feel comfortable.

 

[wandelaar]

14 minutes ago, steve said:

And what exactly does that get you?

 

Understanding.

 

14 minutes ago, steve said:

Is this the only point Laozi is making?

 

No.

 

14 minutes ago, steve said:

What about the other 1400 texts that make up the Daozang?

 

I don't need them, and neither did Lao tzu and Chuang tzu. Knowing when to stop is essential.

 

14 minutes ago, steve said:

If you choose not to see that, it is your loss.

 

Or your misunderstanding.

 

14 minutes ago, steve said:

It is nice to feel comfortable.

 

You must be feeling the same about that, as you are just as stubbornly fixed in your own perspective as I am in mine.

[doc benway]

8 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

 

Understanding.

And what does that do for you?

 

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I don't need them, and neither did Lao tzu and Chuang tzu. Knowing when to stop is essential.

Laozi and Zhuangzi also didn't need the intellect.

 

Quote

Or your misunderstanding.

Misunderstanding is not a threat when the intellect is not engaged.

 

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You must be feeling the same about that, as you are just as stubbornly fixed in your own perspective as I am in mine.

Yes, I do feel comfortable with my approach.

The difference is that I've engaged in Daoism, and other forms of spirituality, with both tools - the intellectual and the experiential. 

I've studied Daodejing, Zhuangzi, Liezi, and Neiye.

I've also practiced Daoist meditation, qigong, and internal martial arts for an extended period of time.

That doesn't make me anything special but I do have a broader perspective from working with both.

 

You've only had the experience of one - the intellect.

I have the frame of reference I need to judge the relative value of each for myself.

You withhold that from yourself.

In the end, you may be right and the experiential path may hold little value for you.

Until you explore it with some degree of commitment, you will never know. 

That's my point.

I don't mean to be overly critical, just trying to help you see there is more than intellectual study in Daoism.

 

It is interesting that you started this thread to explore the value of experiential, non-intellectual practices, but then simply defend your position that there is no need for anything beyond the intellect. If that is your position, why even start the thread? We can only grow through being open. If we hold on to our opinions, there is no chance to learn anything new. 

[wandelaar]

35 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

You must be feeling the same about that, as you are just as stubbornly fixed in your own perspective as I am in mine.

 

Point proven - you now even added some straw man fallacies for good measure. So I rest my case.

 

Please reread your last post.

 

Edited December 26, 2018 by wandelaar

[rideforever]

10 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

Point proven

 

It is strange that you started this thread your heart is not in it.

Perhaps what you are doing currently is the best thing for you right now.

[vonkrankenhaus]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

The foundation of all things cannot be a thing itself, for than it would be just one of those things. So it is a non-thing that nevertheless somehow exists. And this is exactly what Lao tzu is saying.

 

That's WuJi - not Dao.

 

Tao is not a thing or a non-thing.

 

Even "the way the wind blows" is not a thing or a non-thing.

 

DaoDeJing isn't teaching you technicalities of TaiJi philosophy. It assumes you know. The book only specifically mentions YinYang once. It's a fun book, but people are squeezing a rock they don't understand and getting strange juice out of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[wandelaar]

A lot of people who claim to know here! And they disagree with each other - so I am in the right place after all.

[vonkrankenhaus]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

This is why I feel comfortable with the knowledge of today in disagreeing with them on this one point of the relevance of rational thought and analysis.

 

TaiJi philosophy matches perfectly with modern science - atoms, electromagnetism, thermodynamics - all match TaiJi, YinYang, Wu Xing, Bagua, etc. Work together perfectly.

 

It is extremely "rational thought and analysis".

 

What "discrepancies" do you see as existing?

 

And who determined them to be discrepancies?

 

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus