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[Master Logray]

The Buddhist immortality refers to the spirit.  While Taoist refers to the body, if unable achieve , then the spirit.

[freeform]

2 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

To make a gross comparison, for Daoism immortality is said to be the goal, whereas in Buddhism it is the problem. 

 

I personally think there's a bit of a confusion around what immortality really means...

 

There's an aspect of you that is already immortal... that keeps reincarnating. This isn't what we're aiming for, we don't really need to aim for it anyway. When we talk about Heaven, Man, Earth... this reincarnating soul is at the level of Man.

 

The aim in Daoism is not to continue to reincarnate - it's actualise your Original Spirit... that divine spark that exists at the core of who you are - even deeper than the soul (in fact its source).

 

1 hour ago, Master Logray said:

The Buddhist immortality refers to the spirit.  While Taoist refers to the body, if unable achieve , then the spirit.

 

From my experience I have never come across any practicing Daoist that wants to become physically immortal.

[Master Logray]

2 hours ago, dmattwads said:

 

I mostly was talking to western Theravada monks and I kept telling them about these side effects and they kept acting like they either didn't know what was going on or thought I was weird lol. 

 

You raise a very good point that deserves some explanations.  When a person from Chinese background (most Taoists) talks about Buddhism, they are in fact talking about Mahayana Buddhism, or Buddhism that can be found inside China, including some Tibetan Buddhism.  The Chinese Buddhists have long history of close relationship with Taoists.  Many of them are Neidanists.  At some time, some Taoist lineages were passed to Buddhists.   Today even some Taoist temples are run by monks.    So it sounds normal if western Theravada monks have no idea of what you are talking about. 

 

 

4 hours ago, dmattwads said:

Oh something else I've noticed lately is that at work there's kind of this long hallway and in the hallway are a series of lights and I've noticed that as I walk down that hallway very often the lights that are near me get really bright and flare for a second as I'm walking past them. This is kind of new and different and I'm not sure what that is 

 

I install motion detecting lights.  They flare up in the dark when I walk past them. 

 

 

 

[Master Logray]

5 minutes ago, freeform said:

From my experience I have never come across any practicing Daoist that wants to become physically immortal.

 

Refer to your earlier posts, I would say most people in the Chinese communities who take up Neidan are for health reasons rather than spirituality.   If they are more ambitious, they would like to have longevity as well.  Physically immortal is regarded as too far-fetched for them. 

[freeform]

8 minutes ago, Master Logray said:

I would say most people in the Chinese communities who take up Neidan are for health reasons rather than spirituality.   If they are more ambitious, they would like to have longevity as well.  Physically immortal is regarded as too far-fetched for them. 

 

Yeah true. My focus is very much on spirituality... and in those circles becoming physically immortal would be considered like being imprisoned. The aim is to become a Heavenly Immortal... becoming an Earthly Immortal would be considered a tragic, 'high-level' mistake.

[Master Logray]

11 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

Yeah true. My focus is very much on spirituality... and in those circles becoming physically immortal would be considered like being imprisoned. The aim is to become a Heavenly Immortal... becoming an Earthly Immortal would be considered a tragic, 'high-level' mistake.

 

Time changes everything.  It is not easy to be an earth immortal now or to be lower level ones.  Everyone watches a lot of vampire movies, and become perfectly aware of the problems of living a few hundred years.  Attending high school 20 times is not fun.  Relocating and breaking all ties every 10 years hurts.   Not to mention all sorts of electronic IDs, facial surveillance everywhere.  How to explain your immortality to the authorities?

 

Heavenly Immortal is not desirable traditionally.  It is said to be allocated a position in the Heavenly Court.  That means a job, obligations, schedules, responsibilities, results, superiors, colleagues....   Longevity and powers would become normal in the new environment.  Superman would not be super in his own planet. 

[MIchael80]

49 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

Yeah true. My focus is very much on spirituality... and in those circles becoming physically immortal would be considered like being imprisoned. The aim is to become a Heavenly Immortal... becoming an Earthly Immortal would be considered a tragic, 'high-level' mistake.

Very interesting!  How different schools frame their path!!!

 

In yuxian pai and wuliu pai physical immortality is on the way to heavenly immortality and a sign of going in the right direction.

 

Their evolution goes like....

First human immortal  .... after laying the foundations (body open etc. yuan jing and chi are fully replenished)

 

earth immortal  .... this means xing and ming have joined and that is the beginning  of the elixir...that means physical immortality

 

Then heavenly immortality...the elixir has matured to become the yangshen exiting the body.

 

spiritual immortality....physical body is disolved into light only yangshen remains. 

[forestofclarity]

1 hour ago, freeform said:

I personally think there's a bit of a confusion around what immortality really means...

 

As this is a Damo thread, I thought I would go with what he says. In his Comprehensive Guide he says: 

 

"There is much disagreement within Daoism over the meaning of the term Xian... or "immortal." Some say it is a metaphor for reaching a high level of spiritual attainment, but personally I understand it in its most literal sense." 

 

He also states that the spiritual embryo "is one of the final attainments of alchemical practice whereby your own consciousness has been nurtured to the point of being able to exist independently of the physical anchor of the body. This becomes the basis for spiritual immortality..."  

 

I've heard similar notions from other Daoist teachers.

[freeform]

1 hour ago, Master Logray said:

Heavenly Immortal is not desirable traditionally.  It is said to be allocated a position in the Heavenly Court.

Different traditions see things differently. Alchemical traditions I’ve come across don’t see things the same way as what I call Temple Daoists see things. No heavenly buroceatics

 

38 minutes ago, MIchael80 said:

Their evolution goes like....

First human immortal  .... after laying the foundations (body open etc. yuan jing and chi are fully replenished)

 

earth immortal  .... this means xing and ming have joined and that is the beginning  of the elixir...that means physical immortality

 

Then heavenly immortality...the elixir has matured to become the yangshen exiting the body.

 

spiritual immortality....physical body is disolved into light only yangshen remains. 

Yeah - in my tradition Earthly immortal doesn’t mean physically immortal (weirdly).

 

It means your spirit becomes entangled with the earthly plane… you become a sort of earth spirit. I’ve heard people talk of ‘elementals’ or ‘devas’… something along those lines.
 

At the later stages of immortality you are able to keep or create a physical body (or multiple physical forms) and discreate them at will… so you’re sort of physically immortal - but not bound to the earthly plane - you come and go according to your heavenly purpose. 
 

 

[MIchael80]

4 minutes ago, freeform said:

Different traditions see things differently. Alchemical traditions I’ve come across don’t see things the same way as what I call Temple Daoists see things. No heavenly buroceatics

 

Yeah - in my tradition Earthly immortal doesn’t mean physically immortal (weirdly).

 

It means your spirit becomes entangled with the earthly plane… you become a sort of earth spirit. I’ve heard people talk of ‘elementals’ or ‘devas’… something along those lines.
 

At the later stages of immortality you are able to keep or create a physical body (or multiple physical forms) and discreate them at will… so you’re sort of physically immortal - but not bound to the earthly plane - you come and go according to your heavenly purpose. 
 

 

Fascinating!!! 😊

 

I am always amazed how different the same terms are used.

 

In these 2 schools earth immortal means you can live as long as the earth exists.....hence earth immortal. 

But you would still need to reincarnate again if you would have been killed by an accident. 

 

What you describe with forming a body etc would be possible when becoming a spiritual immortal. 

[Maddie]

The discussion on the topic of immortality from a Daoist point of view causes me to wonder where Bodhisattvas fit in from a Buddhist perspective, or even Saints from a Christian point of view.  

[freeform]

3 minutes ago, MIchael80 said:

Fascinating!!! 😊

 

I am always amazed how different the same terms are used.

 

In these 2 schools earth immortal means you can live as long as the earth exists.....hence earth immortal. 

But you would still need to reincarnate again if you would have been killed by an accident. 

 

What you describe with forming a body etc would be possible when becoming a spiritual immortal. 

 

Some masters have direct insight into these processes, and can explain the mechanics of what happens for different specific instances of attainment, and from what I understand, there are more possibilities and nuances than are traditionally recorded… what’s recorded are like the general categories - but the reality is more complex and nuanced.

 

I’m guessing there are few cases of these sorts of attainment - and each tradition will record the nuances within their range of experience historically.

[Shadao]

1 hour ago, forestofemptiness said:

He also states that the spiritual embryo "is one of the final attainments of alchemical practice whereby your own consciousness has been nurtured to the point of being able to exist independently of the physical anchor of the body. This becomes the basis for spiritual immortality..."

Please enlighten me, does this means that you(as in the consciousness/ego reading this right now) still keeps being you or somehow it "breaks off" from the "you" as an independent being?

 

1 hour ago, freeform said:

At the later stages of immortality you are able to keep or create a physical body (or multiple physical forms) and discreate them at will… so you’re sort of physically immortal - but not bound to the earthly plane - you come and go according to your heavenly purpose. 

This seems the best outcome in my opinion.Freedom to come and go and interact with the physical plane if you want to.

 

[dwai]

3 hours ago, Knowthing said:

This seems the best outcome in my opinion.Freedom to come and go and interact with the physical plane if you want to.

Or is it the perfect ego trip?  

[Shadao]

5 hours ago, dwai said:

Or is it the perfect ego trip?  

It can be both or neither too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[freeform]

11 hours ago, dwai said:

Or is it the perfect ego trip?  

If your spirit is an ego, then yes, indeed.

[dwai]

3 hours ago, freeform said:

If your spirit is an ego, then yes, indeed.

It’s the desire to come and go as one pleases (sometimes embodied, sometimes disembodied), an identification with a name and form that is the ego.  

 

[johndoe2012]

I am not sure that the yang shen achievement is a ego trip.

 

I found three different non-taoist traditions describing their version of enlightenment: a body outside the body, one sees the body as from behind / some distance away.

 

I showed one non-dualist the immortal child on the top of the head taoist and he said: yes that is very close to his experience.

 

[dwai]

1 hour ago, johndoe2012 said:

I am not sure that the yang shen achievement is a ego trip.

 

I found three different non-taoist traditions describing their version of enlightenment: a body outside the body, one sees the body as from behind / some distance away.

 

I showed one non-dualist the immortal child on the top of the head taoist and he said: yes that is very close to his experience.

 

I think the problem lies with taking a symbolic thing literally. I keep coming back to this question over and over, and no one who espouses this model of daoist immortality can answer convincingly — “when you recognize your true nature as consciousness alone, where is the need for an ‘immortal’ body?” 
 

Now one might say, you have to “experience” it to understand it. And though it might be the case, my rejoinder would be, “you have to realize your true nature to understand why the idea of this kind of immortality seems a bit childish”. 

 

In any case, I consider that kind of immortality (where you retain your body-mind-personality identification) to be a golden cage. And, when a limited being “levels” up, without full realization (but levels up due to good karma results, etc), they will climb the progressive path (become deities or habitate other (higher) planes, eventually to get to that same liberation that eliminates a need for the earthly or heavenly immortality. 
 

A drop of water, doesn’t lose itself after it goes into the ocean, it becomes the ocean itself. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by dwai

[freeform]

4 hours ago, dwai said:

It’s the desire to come and go as one pleases (sometimes embodied, sometimes disembodied), an identification with a name and form that is the ego.

Except you’re the one adding desire to the equation. 
 

The desire for the realisation of your true nature as consciousness is also an egoic identification with name and form. 
 

11 minutes ago, dwai said:

where is the need for an ‘immortal’ body?” 

You answer yourself rather elegantly:

 

12 minutes ago, dwai said:

A drop of water, doesn’t lose itself after it goes into the ocean, it becomes the ocean itself. 

 

[johndoe2012]

1 hour ago, dwai said:

I think the problem lies with taking a symbolic thing literally. I keep coming back to this question over and over, and no one who espouses this model of daoist immortality can answer convincingly — “when you recognize your true nature as consciousness alone, where is the need for an ‘immortal’ body?” 
 

Now one might say, you have to “experience” it to understand it. And though it might be the case, my rejoinder would be, “you have to realize your true nature to understand why the idea of this kind of immortality seems a bit childish”. 

 

In any case, I consider that kind of immortality (where you retain your body-mind-personality identification) to be a golden cage. And, when a limited being “levels” up, without full realization (but levels up due to good karma results, etc), they will climb the progressive path (become deities or habitate other (higher) planes, eventually to get to that same liberation that eliminates a need for the earthly or heavenly immortality. 
 

A drop of water, doesn’t lose itself after it goes into the ocean, it becomes the ocean itself. 

 

You seem to think average Joe on the street can keep his personality intact while achieving the yang shen stage. Not so, it requires a lot of work.

 

Also your identification as awareness has been criticized by the buddha as not full awakening, because there is identification which hasn't been destroyed by seeing not-self, impermanence, dukkha.

 

Edit: since you can contact / communicate with dead masters (Ramana Maharshi / Buddha Shakyuamuni etc) I consider therm immortal. So what is the difference in result?

Edited October 23, 2021 by johndoe2012

[dwai]

1 hour ago, johndoe2012 said:

 

You seem to think average Joe on the street can keep his personality intact while achieving the yang shen stage. Not so, it requires a lot of work.

 

Also your identification as awareness has been criticized by the buddha as not full awakening, because there is identification which hasn't been destroyed by seeing not-self, impermanence, dukkha.

that’s a misunderstanding of what the Buddha said, but it’s a longer, more protracted discussion I’ve had many times before with a few folks here. I won’t go down that rabbit hole for now. 

Quote

 

Edit: since you can contact / communicate with dead masters (Ramana Maharshi / Buddha Shakyuamuni etc) I consider therm immortal. So what is the difference in result?

Yes that’s a good question — what is the difference?!?  
 

Who is communicating and with whom? When in ignorance, the Self takes on the form of these masters and points out the Self, to the Self. It can be in form of a deity or departed  master, but is 
 

Ask yourself, in any of the stories you’ve read or heard, have you ever known these masters to manifest themselves physically in front of a “seeker”?  
 

I’ve had encounters with a few such masters and deities, but never in a situation where I can physically touch them. It is usually in the astral or causal planes that this happens - in the subtle body. What does that mean? Astral and causal planes are appearances within consciousness, and everything we can experience in these are also essentially within consciousness alone. So why then would someone experience these “individuals”? It is the mind that experiences them, much as the mind does all other phenomena. But  unlike the mind that is engrossed in sensory perceptions being covered by rajas and tamas, the mind veiling becomes more transparent as satva becomes the primary “substance” that covers it. So the satvic mind experiences these beings as being apparently separate, with maybe a specific purpose of addressing a specific aspect of knowledge, or as a trigger point  for a big realization. 
 

Now that can lead down the path of  understanding what the mind is. Though many don’t spend enough time trying to understand this very important aspect which makes knowledge possible. It is the mind alone that is in ignorance, and the mind alone where knowledge can arise to dispel this ignorance. Consciousness/Self is not that, and ever untouched/spotless. 

 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2021 by dwai

[silent thunder]

2 hours ago, dwai said:

I think the problem lies with taking a symbolic thing literally.

I worked at this with my fundamentalist sister and my evangelical mother.

Eventually, my mother began to awaken a bit from the literality.

My sister, just dug in further with every appearance of cognitive dissonance.

 

I love them both, to each their own.

[dwai]

2 hours ago, freeform said:

Except you’re the one adding desire to the equation.

 

What else is the motivation for wanting to go “beyond the beyond”?  

Quote

The desire for the realisation of your true nature as consciousness is also an egoic identification with name and form. 

Quote

Yes indeed. It is. The desire for worldly things is replaced with a desire for realization — to be free from suffering caused by the desire for worldly things. But after realization, it is discarded, like how one might use a thorn to remove another thorn stuck in one’s thumb, and then discard both.
 

After the removal of the second thorn, why is there a need to hold on to the first one? 

Edited October 23, 2021 by dwai

[Shadao]

The more I see the level of discussions here, the more ignorant I feel.

 

But I also feel fascinated...it's weird.