Taoism; how does it all work?

[Kaihe]

I read about Du Xinlin (from a book by Baolin Wu), a taoist monk who attained rainbow body in 1988 in Beijing in front of many witnesses and officials. How does the taoist system get there from dantiens, qi accumulation and all the foundational stuff public sources talk about? I understand that the details are / might be secret but I wonder does anyone know?

[Taoist Texts]

50 minutes ago, Kaihe said:

front of many witnesses and officials

none of  whom had a camcorder

[ChiDragon]

4 hours ago, Kaihe said:

I read about Du Xinlin (from a book by Baolin Wu), a taoist monk who attained rainbow body in 1988 in Beijing in front of many witnesses and officials. How does the taoist system get there from dantiens, qi accumulation and all the foundational stuff public sources talk about? I understand that the details are / might be secret but I wonder does anyone know?

Each time when I read something, there is always a new term which is undefined and unknown to the public. It is very hard to provide an answer for your inquiry. What is a rainbow body to begin with?

[awaken]

Religious fraud is common

[Kaihe]

13 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

Each time when I read something, there is always a new term which is undefined and unknown to the public. It is very hard to provide an answer for your inquiry. What is a rainbow body to begin with?

It is from this article. I do not know the chinese term.... http://openheartopenheart.blogspot.com/2018/06/taoist-master-attains-rainbow-body.html

[Master Logray]

This should be a very famous event.  But there is nothing in Google. The Taoist world seems don't have record of this major event?

 

While a Du Xin Lin (possibly same name 杜信齡) was mentioned in White Cloud Temple's history.  In 1946, a group of Taoists burned the in-charge and another person to death as these 2 were alleged to be corrupt, selling temple properties, closed down 2 free schools and sneaked prostitutes into the temple via a secret passage.   Du Xin Lin, being a main culprit, was sentenced to life imprisonment.  But communist took over few years later.  Don't know what happened to him.  So is this the same person mentioned in the article?

 

[Cobie]

.

Edited August 29, 2023 by Cobie

[Cobie]

.

Edited August 29, 2023 by Cobie

[Kaihe]

54 minutes ago, Master Logray said:

This should be a very famous event.  But there is nothing in Google. The Taoist world seems don't have record of this major event?

 

While a Du Xin Lin (possibly same name 杜信齡) was mentioned in White Cloud Temple's history.  In 1946, a group of Taoists burned the in-charge and another person to death as these 2 were alleged to be corrupt, selling temple properties, closed down 2 free schools and sneaked prostitutes into the temple via a secret passage.   Du Xin Lin, being a main culprit, was sentenced to life imprisonment.  But communist took over few years later.  Don't know what happened to him.  So is this the same person mentioned in the article?

 

 

Patrick Kelly met him in 1987 (took photo, see the blog post) and went back to the temple next year, " No trace could be found of him on our subsequent visits several years later – whether he had died or been ‘officially removed’, I am unsure."

 

Am I to think that immortality is a fairytale....

[Taoist Texts]

20 hours ago, Kaihe said:

wonder does anyone know?

its all in th book

https://www.amazon.com/Taoist-Yoga-Kuan-Charles-Luk/dp/0877280673

 

[Geof Nanto]

On 27/12/2022 at 2:34 AM, Kaihe said:

I read about Du Xinlin (from a book by Baolin Wu), a taoist monk who attained rainbow body in 1988 in Beijing in front of many witnesses and officials. How does the taoist system get there from dantiens, qi accumulation and all the foundational stuff public sources talk about? I understand that the details are / might be secret but I wonder does anyone know?

 

See this comprehensive post by @senseless virtue:

 

 

Note particularly the post of @Walker which he references:

 

 

His conclusion about Du Xinlin:  "This fortifies the argument that "Master Du" very likely is a complete fabrication that was made up to impress Dr. Baolin Wu's students with some very special connection and potential — that could maybe rub on you if you spend money on his courses and healing services, as such marketing business is usually motivated."

 

[thelerner]

Taoism; how does it all work?

My standing on one foot answer-   Study Yin, Yang and Change and you will find your answer**.

also 9,000 books**. 

[Kaihe]

19 hours ago, Geof Nanto said:

 

His conclusion about Du Xinlin:  "This fortifies the argument that "Master Du" very likely is a complete fabrication that was made up to impress Dr. Baolin Wu's students with some very special connection and potential — that could maybe rub on you if you spend money on his courses and healing services, as such marketing business is usually motivated."

 

 

Patrick Kelly photographed this Du Xingling in 1987 in Beijing. The photo can be seen in his book Infinite Tao and in the blog posted above.

 

[senseless virtue]

On 12/26/2022 at 5:34 PM, Kaihe said:

I read about Du Xinlin (from a book by Baolin Wu)

 

Baolin Wu's books have deliberate lies that cast a genuine modern history martial arts master in an unfavorable light as I have pointed out in the thread that was already linked here:

 

 

It's wishful thinking that the miracle story of Du Xinling has any credible substance through the transmission of Baolin Wu.

 

If there was a character named Du Xinling in Beijing as Patrick Kelly tells in his book that you referred to, then the old monk figure likely was a trained actor like everybody else there, although he might have been particularly charismatic and fully enjoying his job of delivering riveting tales to gullible tourists. It's no different than a pirate actor in a amusement park confessing to a impressionable kid that he actually is a real pirate and the others only are actors, especially if the kid had vocal suspicions about some people being fake pirates, and that he goes to drink rum by his hidden treasure stash every night when the paid actors go home.

 

Moreover, what Patrick Kelly's account tells us now is that Baolin Wu himself might have been inspired by the same actor whom he saw in the White Cloud Monastery, so that Baolin Wu decided to elevate him as his make-believe master in order to turn "the old master's Daoist miracle tales" even more lucrative business than ever before. Why waste a good lie if it was found effective such that people enjoy hearing about it and would pay to hear more of these tales made into ever more elaborate fabrications?

[Desmonddf]

On 26/12/2022 at 12:34 PM, Kaihe said:

I read about Du Xinlin (from a book by Baolin Wu), a taoist monk who attained rainbow body in 1988 in Beijing in front of many witnesses and officials. How does the taoist system get there from dantiens, qi accumulation and all the foundational stuff public sources talk about? I understand that the details are / might be secret but I wonder does anyone know?

 

 I'm quite unninterested in discussing if that event is true or false, but I'm interested in giving a brief summary of "how daoism works and what it is about".

 

Sorry if I'm undestanding wrong. That's what you want, right? To know about Daoism in general, not only this story or this book.

 

Anyhow. On this assumption, here's a quick summary:

 

In Ancient China there was a very interesting chain of events. People discovered something the east took quite a lot of time to discover: Deduction of Universal Truths by Observation of Nature and Events.

 

It even came quite close to experimentation and what we call "science", but didn't quite got there. Instead, it went to the complete opposite direction.

 

If in science we seek to separate and isolate little pieces of the world around us to understand some kind of law of nature through rigorously controled experiments, in mystical chinese thinking we try to look at both the bigger and the small pictures at the same time, at the intricacies of how things affect one another, and then taking conclusions.

 

One example would be as follows:

 

A scientist will take a leaf from a tree. It will dry it. Then crush the powder. Then treat it with acids and bases and other chemicals. Then run it through a lot of other processess to try and isolate a certain compound present in that leaf.

 

Then, it will take that compound and start experimenting with it. It will burn it, feed it to lab animals, test its acidity, in summary, learn as much as possible about that little thing. Then, it will make a final judgement about a simple compound found on a simple leaf. It may be the discovery of a new drug or medicine, or just ten years of study and money thrown down the drain. Who knows?

 

That's science.

 

A daoist will look at a leaf. It will notice how it falls from the tree after drying naturaly. Then it will notice how it rots and decays. How worms feed on it. And then it will see how those worms are different from worms that look the same, but eat another kind of leaf.

 

It will observe the tree again. Then other trees. It will look at which animals eat the leaves, and when. It will notice if any animals build nests on those trees. It will know every little detail of a whole forest. During this process, it will make many inferences and come to many conclusions about the many trees and leafs on the forest. It may come with theories about the nature of leafs in general. It may discover that some leaves have medicinal properties. It may discover that some leaves have poison in them. It may discover many, many things. But almost all of them will be inferences, and none a final judgement.

 

Got that all?

 

Well, that's the very basics of daoism. "How to look at things and what we do with what we see".

 

Then, comes accumulation.

 

During years and years of scientific research and after many, many attempts and lots of people involved in the process, books get compiled, drugs produced and technology created.

 

Because lots of people discovered lots of small bits of information on lots of things, and then started compiling that. Then other people took those compilations, tried them out, took their own conclusions and so on and so forth.

 

Well, with Daoism something completely opposite occurs.

 

With the accumulation of lots of people observing lots of things and infering a lot about them, simplicity is what remains.

As science accumulates with clashes and discussions and competition, daoism becomes thinner and smaller.

 

Competing about holistic views of the world just makes it so that a common ground has to be achieved, and that common ground is smaller than the original holistic views.

 

After quite a few millenia of clashing schools of daoist thought, what we are left with are a couple basic concepts:

 

"Everything comes from Nothing" is the most basic one. Also the first one science abhors. But it digress.

Then comes "Everything is Dual". Which science kind of agree on? Kind of.

Then comes "From the combination of Dualities come all phenomena and things in existence". Which science cannot comprehend. It just can't. Because it cannot fanthom things coming from nothing, and therefore abstract things being the origin of concrete things.

 

Anyhow. I digress again.

 

Those three pillars are the very basics of the basics of Daoism. Wu (Emptiness), Yin-Yang (Duality) and the "smaller dao" mentioned by Lao Zi, the "one that can be comprehended" (combination of dualities).

 

All Daoism will share these tree traits. Others come from the many schools of daoist thought.

 

Now, the one thing you have been taking interest on (dao tien, accumulating Qi in the body, etc) come from a couple branches of Daoism, called by the generalist name of the practice they teach - Nei Dan (or Inner Alchemy) and Qi Gong (or "manipulation of Qi").

 

Those are interested in human beings and how they connect to the laws of the world not in the common daoist sense (of morals, behavior and harmonization of self and nature), but in a more... detailed sense.

 

In how bones, blood and breath connect to the movements of the seasons, for instance.

 

In how certain postures and ways of doing things connect with one's consciousness, and how the consciousness connects to empytiness and emotions and desires.

 

And so forth and so on.

 

The most common conclusions reached by the many schools of thought that deal with Qi Gong and Nei Dan are:

 

1 - The human body, awareness and "spirit" are different things and exist in a semi-independent state.

 

2 - There's a way to turn body into awareness, and awareness into spirit. There are also ways to turn spirit into mind and mind into body. And many other cute little tricks.

 

3 - All of that is difficult as f*ck to do for 99,999% of the population, even with proper instruction. So.... good luck with that. Even the "greatest masters of our times" only tap a little into the infinite potential of cultivation.

 

4 - There might (?) be or have been people (if we can call them that) who can, or could, do a lot more than what we see.

 

And that's the gist of it.

 

Accumulating Qi into the lower abdomen through controled breathing, funny poses and mental discipline are techniques to ultimately achieve Body-To-Awareness transformation.

 

The same with building the Dan Tian, raising Qi and turning it into Shen (the last step of this Body-To-Awareness process). Or raising Shen and turning it into Emptiness (Awareness-To-Spirit transformation).

 

And then, once you do that, congratulations, you've given the very first baby step into this world of cultivation!

 

After that you need to draw Spirit from the "Infinite and Indefinite primordial source of all things" in order to turn it into Awareness, and then that Awareness is then used to replenish your Body with energy, vitality and health.

 

Of course, other techniques exist as well. There are those who have help from gods and immortals or ghosts (or so claim to have), and can receive things from the "infinite and indefinite primordial source of all things" without using their bodies as fuel for an inner furnace.

 

Then there's the mix-up and people who do both things and so forth and so on.

 

I guess you got it now?

[Taoist Texts]

8 hours ago, Desmonddf said:

I guess you got it now?

it depends. which teacher did you get it from?

[Desmonddf]

On 25/08/2023 at 4:47 AM, Taoist Texts said:

it depends. which teacher did you get it from?

 

Many sources, few teachers. Its supposed to be a third-person-point-of-view of daoism and cultivation in general. Absorbing a teacher's view on the subject would undermine its purpose - as I would be propagating a certain school of thoughs' view, not a general view.

[old3bob]

On 8/24/2023 at 5:43 PM, Desmonddf said:

 

 I'm quite unninterested in discussing if that event is true or false, but I'm interested in giving a brief summary of "how daoism works and what it is about".

 

Sorry if I'm undestanding wrong. That's what you want, right? To know about Daoism in general, not only this story or this book.

 

Anyhow. On this assumption, here's a quick summary:

 

In Ancient China there was a very interesting chain of events. People discovered something the east took quite a lot of time to discover: Deduction of Universal Truths by Observation of Nature and Events.

 

It even came quite close to experimentation and what we call "science", but didn't quite got there. Instead, it went to the complete opposite direction.

 

If in science we seek to separate and isolate little pieces of the world around us to understand some kind of law of nature through rigorously controled experiments, in mystical chinese thinking we try to look at both the bigger and the small pictures at the same time, at the intricacies of how things affect one another, and then taking conclusions.

 

One example would be as follows:

 

A scientist will take a leaf from a tree. It will dry it. Then crush the powder. Then treat it with acids and bases and other chemicals. Then run it through a lot of other processess to try and isolate a certain compound present in that leaf.

 

Then, it will take that compound and start experimenting with it. It will burn it, feed it to lab animals, test its acidity, in summary, learn as much as possible about that little thing. Then, it will make a final judgement about a simple compound found on a simple leaf. It may be the discovery of a new drug or medicine, or just ten years of study and money thrown down the drain. Who knows?

 

That's science.

 

A daoist will look at a leaf. It will notice how it falls from the tree after drying naturaly. Then it will notice how it rots and decays. How worms feed on it. And then it will see how those worms are different from worms that look the same, but eat another kind of leaf.

 

It will observe the tree again. Then other trees. It will look at which animals eat the leaves, and when. It will notice if any animals build nests on those trees. It will know every little detail of a whole forest. During this process, it will make many inferences and come to many conclusions about the many trees and leafs on the forest. It may come with theories about the nature of leafs in general. It may discover that some leaves have medicinal properties. It may discover that some leaves have poison in them. It may discover many, many things. But almost all of them will be inferences, and none a final judgement.

 

Got that all?

 

Well, that's the very basics of daoism. "How to look at things and what we do with what we see".

 

Then, comes accumulation.

 

During years and years of scientific research and after many, many attempts and lots of people involved in the process, books get compiled, drugs produced and technology created.

 

Because lots of people discovered lots of small bits of information on lots of things, and then started compiling that. Then other people took those compilations, tried them out, took their own conclusions and so on and so forth.

 

Well, with Daoism something completely opposite occurs.

 

With the accumulation of lots of people observing lots of things and infering a lot about them, simplicity is what remains.

As science accumulates with clashes and discussions and competition, daoism becomes thinner and smaller.

 

Competing about holistic views of the world just makes it so that a common ground has to be achieved, and that common ground is smaller than the original holistic views.

 

After quite a few millenia of clashing schools of daoist thought, what we are left with are a couple basic concepts:

 

"Everything comes from Nothing" is the most basic one. Also the first one science abhors. But it digress.

Then comes "Everything is Dual". Which science kind of agree on? Kind of.

Then comes "From the combination of Dualities come all phenomena and things in existence". Which science cannot comprehend. It just can't. Because it cannot fanthom things coming from nothing, and therefore abstract things being the origin of concrete things.

 

Anyhow. I digress again.

 

Those three pillars are the very basics of the basics of Daoism. Wu (Emptiness), Yin-Yang (Duality) and the "smaller dao" mentioned by Lao Zi, the "one that can be comprehended" (combination of dualities).

 

All Daoism will share these tree traits. Others come from the many schools of daoist thought.

 

Now, the one thing you have been taking interest on (dao tien, accumulating Qi in the body, etc) come from a couple branches of Daoism, called by the generalist name of the practice they teach - Nei Dan (or Inner Alchemy) and Qi Gong (or "manipulation of Qi").

 

Those are interested in human beings and how they connect to the laws of the world not in the common daoist sense (of morals, behavior and harmonization of self and nature), but in a more... detailed sense.

 

In how bones, blood and breath connect to the movements of the seasons, for instance.

 

In how certain postures and ways of doing things connect with one's consciousness, and how the consciousness connects to empytiness and emotions and desires.

 

And so forth and so on.

 

The most common conclusions reached by the many schools of thought that deal with Qi Gong and Nei Dan are:

 

1 - The human body, awareness and "spirit" are different things and exist in a semi-independent state.

 

2 - There's a way to turn body into awareness, and awareness into spirit. There are also ways to turn spirit into mind and mind into body. And many other cute little tricks.

 

3 - All of that is difficult as f*ck to do for 99,999% of the population, even with proper instruction. So.... good luck with that. Even the "greatest masters of our times" only tap a little into the infinite potential of cultivation.

 

4 - There might (?) be or have been people (if we can call them that) who can, or could, do a lot more than what we see.

 

And that's the gist of it.

 

Accumulating Qi into the lower abdomen through controled breathing, funny poses and mental discipline are techniques to ultimately achieve Body-To-Awareness transformation.

 

The same with building the Dan Tian, raising Qi and turning it into Shen (the last step of this Body-To-Awareness process). Or raising Shen and turning it into Emptiness (Awareness-To-Spirit transformation).

 

And then, once you do that, congratulations, you've given the very first baby step into this world of cultivation!

 

After that you need to draw Spirit from the "Infinite and Indefinite primordial source of all things" in order to turn it into Awareness, and then that Awareness is then used to replenish your Body with energy, vitality and health.

 

Of course, other techniques exist as well. There are those who have help from gods and immortals or ghosts (or so claim to have), and can receive things from the "infinite and indefinite primordial source of all things" without using their bodies as fuel for an inner furnace.

 

Then there's the mix-up and people who do both things and so forth and so on.

 

I guess you got it now?

 

no-thing is not nothing,  human mind is naturally aghast at no-thing (unless prepared) since it is a thing

Edited August 28, 2023 by old3bob

[ChiDragon]

On 8/24/2023 at 4:43 PM, Desmonddf said:

"Everything comes from Nothing" is the most basic one.

有生於無 : The direct translation is "Everything comes from Nothing". However, what it was simply saying is "the visible comes from the invisible" or "the invisible becomes visible." That is the basic description of Tao in Chapter one.

Edited August 28, 2023 by ChiDragon

[Cobie]

14 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

… That is the basic description of Tao in Chapter one.

 no I am not saying anything  

 

 

 

[ChiDragon]

On 8/24/2023 at 4:43 PM, Desmonddf said:

A daoist will look at a leaf. It will notice how it falls from the tree after drying naturaly. Then it will notice how it rots and decays. How worms feed on it. And then it will see how those worms are different from worms that look the same, but eat another kind of leaf.

 

It will observe the tree again. Then other trees. It will look at which animals eat the leaves, and when. It will notice if any animals build nests on those trees. It will know every little detail of a whole forest. During this process, it will make many inferences and come to many conclusions about the many trees and leafs on the forest. It may come with theories about the nature of leafs in general. It may discover that some leaves have medicinal properties. It may discover that some leaves have poison in them. It may discover many, many things. But almost all of them will be inferences, and none a final judgement.

The whole idea in the philosophy of  Taoism is about Wu Wei(無為), let nature take its course, do not interrupt the course of nature. It seems you have a good grips of Taoism.

Edited August 28, 2023 by ChiDragon

[ChiDragon]

On 12/26/2022 at 7:34 AM, Kaihe said:

I understand that the details are / might be secret but I wonder does anyone know?

It is not secret at all. It was the misinterpretations of the Dao De Jing(DDJ) by many people. Even the ordinary natives. It is because that the DDJ was written in classic Chinese. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for modern people to comprehend without the aid of native scholars. The interpretation with the modern approach sometimes leads to a wrong full meaning of the characters. Therefore, it is better to learn it from well know qualified native scholars about the subject. 

BTW I am not a qualified native scholar, but I had learned from their books.

Edited August 28, 2023 by ChiDragon

[Daniel]

1 minute ago, ChiDragon said:

Therefore, it is better to learn it from well know qualified native scholars about the subject.

 

You are cordially invited, and I will very much appreciate your input if you choose to share.

 

 

1 hour ago, Cobie said:

 no I am not saying anything  

 

You too.... naturally. 

[Cobie]

.

Edited August 29, 2023 by Cobie

[old3bob]

1 hour ago, ChiDragon said:

The whole idea in the philosophy of  Taoism is about Wu Wei(無為), let nature take its course, do not interrupt the course of nature. It seems you have a good grips of Taoism.

 

It seems there could be some problems if that saying is over generalized? For instance: "Man follows ways of Earth the Earth follows the ways of Heaven, Heaven follows the way of Tao, Tao follows it own ways"  from chapter 25. Thus with the ways of Man and Earth often being the ways of the jungle, or of claw and tooth.  Thus one would have to go upstream to higher ways compared to just letting things go downstream to the ways of the jungle and which some might take as not letting nature take its course.

Edited August 28, 2023 by old3bob