The ultimate goal of Neidan

[Cobie]

 

8 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

….

You posted a wonderful quote that said, “De … came to refer to an inner strength, power or potency within all sorts of things,  and in humans, “moral excellence”

So he says, in things De is power etc.; in humans De is virtue (dictionary: virtue - behaviour showing high moral standards).

Chinese thinking (at the time of writing of the DDJ) * put as opposites:  天下 tian1 xia4 and 天地 tian1 di4

 

天下  - society, the ‘human’ world. 天下 has 事 shi4 

事 - what’s man-made, human interactions. 

These can be controlled [with virtue].

天地 - nature, the physical world. 天地 has 物 wu4 

物 wu4 - things in ‘nature’ (including the human bodies). Floods, droughts very scary [very powerful etc.].

These cannot be controlled.

 

* (Chad Hansen, p29 & 34 Dutch copy)

 

Edited August 27 by Cobie

[Taoist Texts]

46 minutes ago, Cobie said:

天地 - nature, the physical world. 天地 has 物 wu4 

物 wu4 - things in ‘nature’ (including the human bodies). Floods, droughts very scary, very powerful etc.

These cannot be controlled.

of course they can be. because 天地 are the spiritual world, not physical, and when the spirits see your De they approve of it and make the 天地 peaceful

Quote

夫恬惔寂寞，虚无无为，此天地之平而道德之质也。
Ingrained Ideas:    
Hence it is said, 'Placidity, indifference, silence, quietude, absolute vacancy, and non-action: these are the qualities which maintain the peace of heaven and earth and embody the Dao and its De.' 《刻意 - Ingrained Ideas》

 

1 hour ago, Cobie said:

天下 has 事 shi4 

事 - what’s man-made, human interactions. 

These can be controlled with virtue. 

actually 事 refers to serving Heaven as well. 59道德经:    治人事天莫若啬. its a one universe, the spirits are watching, the heaven is listening

[Chang dao ling]

5 hours ago, Antares said:

book Restoring Your Life Energy

Can I practice from this book? 

[Chang dao ling]

5 hours ago, Antares said:

second one is secret one, I wont disclose it here

So your master told you not to tell about your lineage? So it is a closed door lineage?

[damdao]

2 hours ago, Apech said:

The original meaning of virtue was manly strength - the Latin for man being vir.  Then it came to mean strength or power generally - which is the sense used by Machiavelli in the Prince.  Virtue as in saintliness and morals comes from female virtue which was about behaving properly and maintaining virginity and so on.  
 

If ‘de’ is to be translated as virtue I would suggest it is in the fist sense of something good, effective, strong and so on.  
 

 

Agreed, I was referring to this meaning. I thought this kind of etymology was common knowledge but I can see it is not (TT surely knows it but choses to twist words) even when either in english as in spanish we say tha a musician is vituous not if he helps people in an earthquake but if he plays an instrument very very well. So,the problem here is not if we translate De as virtue but if we understand virtue merely and only as moral virtue or as a kind of inner power (even carismatic innature).

 

We can add that the latin vir is related to sankrit vīra, hero, vīrya manly strenght from the root vīr to be powerful.

 

About Barnwell being anamateur, well, this is partly ad hominem, I said tha analysis is good.

 

"Other translations/glosses have been offered, such as Power, Potency, Excellence, Integrity, Nature, Moral Charisma, Kindness, Generosity, Rewards and Gratitude. De has similarities not only with ancient Greek Aretê and Latin Virtus, but also Greek Ethos, Kharis, Kalokagathía, Dunamis, Eunoia, Chrēstotēs and Latin Bonitas, Bonum, Indoles, and Mores. All of these are accurate in some contexts, but there have been misguided attempts by many to choose a single translation or gloss and use it in every single passage, sometimes across numerous texts. This paper argues against such a simplification."

 

[Sahaja]

My understanding is that different texts have different meanings for de. If we view the Dao DeJing as a Yang Sheng text, it could have the meaning of circulation of qi (amount/quality). Circulation of Qi was the Dao in each person in this interpretation. More qi, more de. More de, more alignment with the Dao.
 

If we use the Analects, there is a different meaning intended (moral force). Earlier views of de (before DDJ and Analects) meant amoral power (perhaps with some esoteric flavor) attributed to certain people. Perhaps like having  charisma or being seductive.

[dwai]

Here's an explanation of De (Te) by Master Waysun Liao in his book "Dimension One"

Here, he uses the term Do (as the precursor to the term Dao) (also as a play on his book title - Dimension One). 

Quote

Quote

They called our life energy “Chi” or “Ki.” They called our invisible spirit “Shen.” They called our mind and its thinking “Yi,” while separately calling our ability to think, that piece of DO inside us “Te.”

Liao, Waysun. Dimension One: The Laws of the Universe According to Tao (p. 116). Taichi Tao Productions. Kindle Edition. 

And

Quote

You have that ability, I have that ability, everyone has that ability to think. And although your thoughts and my thoughts on any given day are probably very different, there is a great similarity between the mechanism—the root ability—of how you think and how I think. Most people have similar basic thinking functions and patterns, or we could never have the sciences of psychiatry, neurology, psychology, sociology, or behavioral studies. The overall sameness between human beings and the patterns of how we think point to the fact that our thinking ability comes from a common source, the same root. So, while what you and I think may be different, our ability to think comes from the same DO.

Liao, Waysun. Dimension One: The Laws of the Universe According to Tao (p. 67). Taichi Tao Productions. Kindle Edition. 

It is obvious what is being referred to here - the primordial awareness or consciousness, which is at the foundation of our being. The process of uncovering our De (Te) is achieved by the process of releasing layers of conditioning (not building Qi, etc). The method of releasing the layers of conditioning and conditioned thinking consequently frees up our "energy". 

De is not morality, ethics, etc - though those are the outcome of realizing our true nature (De). It is not more Qi - that too is a consequence of releasing the conditioned layers of our personality. 

[Antares]

1 hour ago, Chang dao ling said:

Can I practice from this book? 

In theory you can, but also he has the video on it. Buy his video on Daogong if you can, i got it may be 12 years ago, but I could not understand it all the way until somebody from the lineage explained it to me, I mean how to do  it the right way. There is not complete explanation in the book you can do it the way he explains it in the book 

[Sahaja]

34 minutes ago, dwai said:

Here's an explanation of De (Te) by Master Waysun Liao in his book "Dimension One"

Here, he uses the term Do (as the precursor to the term Dao) (also as a play on his book title - Dimension One). 

And

It is obvious what is being referred to here - the primordial awareness or consciousness, which is at the foundation of our being. The process of uncovering our De (Te) is achieved by the process of releasing layers of conditioning (not building Qi, etc). The method of releasing the layers of conditioning and conditioned thinking consequently frees up our "energy". 

De is not morality, ethics, etc - though those are the outcome of realizing our true nature (De). It is not more Qi - that too is a consequence of releasing the conditioned layers of our personality. 

Perhaps from the standpoint of the path of subtraction this is a correct. However, I think this is a later interpretation influenced by Buddhism just like morality is more of a Confucian view of de. it’s more likely the group that was associated with the DDJ tradition  followed the path of addition which makes qi a more likely starting point.

[Taoist Texts]

4 hours ago, Apech said:

The original meaning of virtue was manly strength - the Latin for man being vir.  Then it came to mean strength or power generally - which is the sense used by Machiavelli in the Prince.  Virtue as in saintliness and morals comes from female virtue which was about behaving properly and maintaining virginity and so on.  

This is getting close to the truth gender-wise, but please consider that manliness is not a manly physical strength, an elephant is strong but not manly, a woman can be strapping but not manly. Virtue is doing the right thing, like a real man, (even when there is no pressure which would require any psychological or physical strength) (yes virtue is a sexist word). Hence there is no separate male and female virtues because when a female behaves virtuously she is doing the right thing like a real man would.

 

Now to the amateurish western guesswork of De being something tangible, like qi-substance or ability to think or some tangible-power;). Of course none of these empty guesses are supported by a traditional quote.;)

Westerners are amoral-illusory-mind-materialists who cling at the tangible straws they can understand such as: thinking-ability  or some qi-substance or some tangible-power or ability-to-do-something; that's why they actively refute the obvious original - De is doing the right thing, De is the moral behavior - which is a loathsome immaterial-and-moral concept that's why the westerners are studiously blind to it.

And that's why the word’s graph is a human (morally) upright (直) heart (心)   德.

[dwai]

38 minutes ago, Sahaja said:

Perhaps from the standpoint of the path of subtraction this is a correct. However, I think this is a later interpretation influenced by Buddhism just like morality is more of a Confucian view of de. it’s more likely the group that was associated with the DDJ tradition  followed the path of addition which makes qi a more likely starting point.

Maybe, though ML very clearly favors the DDJ as the primary source. In fact, his teachings are very much aligned  with the neiyeh. 

[forestofclarity]

57 minutes ago, Sahaja said:

 followed the path of addition which makes qi a more likely starting point.

 

Anything to elaborate on this point? 

 

Offhand, it seems to me that unless the acquired mind is sufficiently attenuated, adding more energy to the total individual system would just strengthen it. 

[Apech]

11 minutes ago, forestofemptiness said:

 

Anything to elaborate on this point? 

 

Offhand, it seems to me that unless the acquired mind is sufficiently attenuated, adding more energy to the total individual system would just strengthen it. 

What is the acquired mind?

[Shadow_self]

1 hour ago, dwai said:

De is not morality, ethics, etc - though those are the outcome of realizing our true nature (De). It is not more Qi - that too is a consequence of releasing the conditioned layers of our personality. 

 

Thank you for posting this.

 

Its a reflection of what I have been taught and experienced  

[dwai]

1 hour ago, Taoist Texts said:

Now to the amateurish western guesswork of De being something tangible, like qi-substance or ability to think or some tangible-power;). Of course none of these empty guesses are supported by a traditional quote.;)

 

As compared to you, who has first-hand knowledge of it? 

Sometimes, things have literal and implied meanings. Scholars and linguists can translate the literal meanings. The implied meanings are taught by a master to a disciple. That is the way it has always been with Eastern spiritual subjects. 

Spoiler

A truly good man is not aware of his goodness,
And is therefore good.
A foolish man tries to be good,
And is therefore not good.

A truly good man does nothing,
Yet nothing is left undone.
A foolish man is always doing,
Yet much remains to be done

When a truly kind man does something, he leaves nothing undone.
When a just man does something, he leaves a great deal to be done.
When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds,
He rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order

Therefore when Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is kindness.
When kindness is lost, there is justice.
When justice is lost, there is ritual.
Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion.
Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of the Tao.
It is the beginning of folly.

Therefore the truly great man dwells on what is real
     and not what is on the surface,
On the fruit and not the flower,
Therefore accept the one and reject the other.

 

[Shadow_self]

29 minutes ago, Apech said:

What is the acquired mind?

 

Its a little crude, but something like this  

 

Edited August 27 by Shadow_self

[ChiDragon]

8 hours ago, Antares said:

..... But I believe no much native chinese people who know ancient Chinese well enough. For example I wonder how you understand the chapter 8 of DDJ  

 That was not a wise assumption.
 

Chapter 8 - Be Virtuous like Water
1.上善若水。
2.水善利萬物而不爭，
3.處眾人之所惡，
4.故幾於道。
5.居善地，
6.心善淵與善仁，
7.言善信，
8.正善治，
9.事善能，
10.動善時。
11.夫唯不爭，
12.故無尤。 

Translation in terse English:
1. High virtue like water.
2. Water is good at benefiting all things without contend.
3. Attend places where people disgusted.
4. Hence, water is similar to Tao.
5. Dwell in good selected places,
6. Good deep in the heart with peace and kind to others,
7. Spoken words with trust,
8. Rule with benevolence,
9. Conduct affairs with best ability,
10.Take action in a timely manner,
11.Therefore, only by not contending,
12.Thus no resentment.

[johndoe2012]

4 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

This is getting close to the truth gender-wise, but please consider that manliness is not a manly physical strength, an elephant is strong but not manly, a woman can be strapping but not manly. Virtue is doing the right thing, like a real man, (even when there is no pressure which would require any psychological or physical strength) (yes virtue is a sexist word). Hence there is no separate male and female virtues because when a female behaves virtuously she is doing the right thing like a real man would.

 

Now to the amateurish western guesswork of De being something tangible, like qi-substance or ability to think or some tangible-power;). Of course none of these empty guesses are supported by a traditional quote.;)

Westerners are amoral-illusory-mind-materialists who cling at the tangible straws they can understand such as: thinking-ability  or some qi-substance or some tangible-power or ability-to-do-something; that's why they actively refute the obvious original - De is doing the right thing, De is the moral behavior - which is a loathsome immaterial-and-moral concept that's why the westerners are studiously blind to it.

And that's why the word’s graph is a human (morally) upright (直) heart (心)   德.

 

There is no Westerner. There is only emptiness. 

[Shadow_self]

3 hours ago, dwai said:

Sometimes, things have literal and implied meanings. Scholars and linguists can translate the literal meanings. The implied meanings are taught by a master to a disciple. That is the way it has always been with Eastern spiritual subjects. 

 

This is an exceptionally important point.

 

The texts, things like the DDJ, The Wuzhen Pian, The SOTGF  and so on. At a practical level, These are all texts which augment the practice given by the teacher. 

 

If you want to get very esoteric, in certain cases, an actual tranmission is required to understand them. A literal enegetic transmission

 

Without the practice and teacher, (and often, transmission) much of the utlity and hidden truth of the text is lost

[Cobie]

10 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

of course they can be. because 天地 are the spiritual world, not physical, and when the spirits see your De they approve of it and make the 天地 peaceful

Imo both, an overlay of the uncontrollable physical with a controllable (rituals/virtue) metaphysical. 

 

Quote

actually 事 refers to serving Heaven as well. 

治人事, 天 … - ruling people’s affairs,Tian (the Zhou’s sky deity) …

 

Quote

59道德经:    治人事天莫若啬. its a one universe, the spirits are watching, the heaven is listening

Thanks for the quote. 

 

Edited August 28 by Cobie

[Cobie]

7 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

… Virtue is … male …

 

Imo De only became male Western Zhou onwards. 
See the Shang oracle bone scripts on the Wiktionary pages of 

目mu4  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/目 and

德 de2 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/德 

 

The meaning ‘kindness’ (from the second definition on the Wiktionary page) would be the better choice imo,

De (德 de2) - kindness (a female quality).

 

 

Edited August 28 by Cobie

[Sahaja]

7 hours ago, dwai said:

Maybe, though ML very clearly favors the DDJ as the primary source. In fact, his teachings are very much aligned  with the neiyeh. 

I see lots of comments on how people interpret the DDJ now through their own current belief lens (Confucian, Neidan, Buddhist, Martial Arts, etc)  but I was more focused on what it might have meant then to the community in which it developed.The hypothesis I was using I got from a scholar whose work I thought was insightful who viewed the theme of DDJ as Yang Sheng cultivation (a series of practices for nurturing health and longevity with qi as a central component of the practice). His hypothesis was that these teachings started as an oral tradition among a group of proto Daoist recluses doing Yang Sheng practices that was later compiled into the DDJ. 
 

I don’t think this community was Confucian. Confucian beliefs were essentially inimical to the basic tenets of the DDJ. They wanted people to fix things with filial piety and benevolence (a form of You Wei). The DDJ said that You  Wei would only make a bad situation worse. In later texts some accommodations were made to combine these disparate views but there is no evidence this happened at the time of the development of the DDJ. 
 

I don’t think this community was using Buddhist methods to cultivate the mind as there was no record of these practices having arrived in China until 1st century of the common age 500 years later. In fact one could argue that even in the Zhuang-zi (another Daoist text which may have been compiled slightly later than the DDJ) there was some thinly veiled criticism of Yang Sheng (and perhaps the community associated with the DDJ) as it didn’t sufficiently deal with cultivation of the mind. 

 

As far as Neidan goes I don’t think there is any evidence that it existed at the time of the DDJ. Certainly the tools of Yang Sheng are related to or can be part of prep for Neidan but the earliest documented reference to the embryo and the Dan tian was not until the 3rd  century CE where they are seemingly referenced in the body god meditations of the Laozi Zhong Jing. These concepts went through further evolution including combination with some  Fangshi process concepts until they became more widespread as what we know today as Neidan in the Song dynasty 600 years later, roughly 1500 years after the DDJ.. 
 

Now certainly texts like the DDJ can be used on a modern basis to help support and even understand current practice. In my own practice non interference/non governance,/non intention (wuwei) are key concepts that are very useful, practical guides. Working with qi is also a key component. Actually “just” non intention/non interference and qi can take you far into the process as I understand it and are in fact mutually supportive.  I’m sure there are now  Masters using texts like the DDJ effectively to convey their teachings (e.g. the “people”are thoughts and the “country” is the mind, etc.)  However I don’t think there is any documented basis to say there is an unbroken lineage of transmission between the DDJ of that time and the Neidan of today or that all of  today’s concepts and practices even existed at that time. 
 

anyway my comments are at best a thesis you can agree or disagree with but I wanted to make clear it was a conjecture about what might have been going on with this group of proto Daoist recluses then not what we each  want to  project onto this text informed by  2500 years of intervening history and knowledge. 
 

 

 

[Chang dao ling]

6 hours ago, Shadow_self said:

 

This is an exceptionally important point.

 

The texts, things like the DDJ, The Wuzhen Pian, The SOTGF  and so on. At a practical level, These are all texts which augment the practice given by the teacher. 

 

If you want to get very esoteric, in certain cases, an actual tranmission is required to understand them. A literal enegetic transmission

 

Without the practice and teacher, (and often, transmission) much of the utlity and hidden truth of the text is lost

Yes exactly I agree with you 💯 

[Antares]

10 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

High virtue like water.
2. Water is good at benefiting all things without contend.
3. Attend places where people disgusted.
4. Hence, water is similar to Tao.

So why you dont see that this is not about morality or ethics? What is your point or argument in re to De understanding? 

[Antares]

14 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

5. Dwell in good selected places,
6. Good deep in the heart with peace and kind to others,
7. Spoken words with trust,
8. Rule with benevolence,
9. Conduct affairs with best ability,
10.Take action in a timely manner,
11.Therefore, only by not contending,
12.Thus no resentment.

5 and 6 may be read as one  and can mean internal state or awareness (preheaven "good place") and for that you need "water"