Taoist Texts

'cause we really really like all of those also... work is a four letter word

you had me at sex

I am genuinely laudatory and elated at your insight Also I am sarcastic about all poor souls who held forth on the subject of valley spirits. What can you do thou? Elvis has left the building.

Excellent, excellent Dusty, that finally settles it. One mystery less, there is no valley spirit in TTC, there never have been, and 2500 years of cryptic vocabulary is owed to a simple misread. Brilliant. hmm i just noticed that ctext does not GD for ch. 6. By guard I meant 存 道德經6 《道德經》: 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。 《列子·天瑞》: 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地之根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。 《老子河上公章句·成象》: 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。 《馬王堆·老子甲道經》: 浴神□死，是胃玄牝。玄牝之門，是胃□地之根。縣縣呵若存，用之不堇。 《馬王堆·老子乙道經》: 浴神不死，是胃玄牝。玄牝之門，是胃天地之根。縣縣呵其若存，用之不堇。

also in favor of neigong theory from a roughly contemporaneous text 容成公者，自稱黃帝師，見於周穆王，能善輔導之事。取精於玄牝，其要谷神不死，守生養氣者也。髮白更黑，齒落更生。事與老子同，亦云老子師也。 http://ctext.org/lie-xian-zhuan?searchu=%E7%8E%84%E7%89%9D#n285625 take semen send to the Dark Female wanting the gushen not to die

i would love 浴 or 谷 to be variants of 欲 but is it supported elswhere?

to guard 'it' non-stop 綿綿若存， Liezi just quotes TTC so its not an independent source; could not find it in BPZ on ctext http://ctext.org/baopuzi?searchu=%E8%B0%B7%E7%A5%9E so yes please if you could me too, since they belong to same tradition but different strands of it since TTC nomenclature is not in Zhongjing

道德經6 《道德經》: 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。 《列子·天瑞》: 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地之根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。 《老子河上公章句·成象》: 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。 《馬王堆·老子甲道經》: 浴神□死，是胃玄牝。玄牝之門，是胃□地之根。縣縣呵若存，用之不堇。 《馬王堆·老子乙道經》: 浴神不死，是胃玄牝。玄牝之門，是胃天地之根。縣縣呵其若存，用之不堇。 This chapter is a mess on a completely different level from the rest of the TTC which is a fine mess in its own right. Almost none of its terminology is attested anywhere else besides TTC and is not repeated within TTC. Its two lines are different in purpose. The first one appears to be definitive, 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地根。 in the same format as formulas in other early texts like 三面之人不死，是謂大荒之野。(Shanhai jing) … here is a three faced man who doesn’t die, he is called the savage of great wilderness The second one seems to be instructive. 綿綿若存，用之不勤。 The first protagonist in the chapters is a ‘valley spirit’, which is not attested at all besides as in TTC, which makes it is a dismissible misunderstanding. The second variant, ‘a bathing spirit’ is not attested either, however there is a rare combo graphically similar to the latter 內官不過九御，外官不過九品，足以供給神祇而已，豈敢厭縱其耳目心腹以亂百度？. 《國語 - Guo Yu》 [Warring States (475 BC - 221 BC)] to feed spirits 給神. The first sentence then would be a short hand for: The place where the spirits are fed is called 玄牝 (a combo unique to TTC). However 玄 is an alias for Heaven 天 指海。 汉 扬雄 《太玄·饰》：“次五，下言如水，实以天牝。” 司马光 集注：“牝，谷也。天牝，谓海也。 http://www.zdic.net/c/9/3f/99771.htm 玄牝 is the same as 天牝 which is a sea, in this case a sea inside the human body as per 天牝從來，復得其往，氣出於腦，即不邪干。 ..what comes from the Heavenly female send back again, let qi rise to the brain then no evil will interfere. 《黃帝內經 - Huangdi Neijing》《素問 - Suwen》 Further, this sea within the body precedes a location of 天地根 as in Wenzi 體本抱神，以遊天地之根 …embrace spirit within body, travel to the root… http://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han?searchu=%E5%A4%A9%E5%9C%B0%E4%B9%8B%E6%A0%B9#n58545 which must be some vestige of ancient cosmogony later relocated within the body. The second part of the chapter is garbled and obviously cut short since there is no description of the results anticipated from the instructions in the chapter.

Yes, and the end result, 'the root' is a state of pure eternal energy. Paradoxically this process is decribed as both 'most simple and easy' and 'the hardest thing possible'. I am very sorry for her loss and hope not to appear insensitive but this seems pertinent to the subject of return as well as Chuang Tzu you quoted:

Question: they say that each person has everything that he needs (for enlightenment) in sufficiency, then why do we need training? Answer: if you don’t train your heart it will be like gold hidden in mineral ore, if the great melter puts it into a kiln, melts away the dirt, refines out the true thing, then it will become gold, if not it will remain ore. The practitioners also can stay in the state of ore if they keep dimness and pollution in their heart. But if they make their correct intent into the great melter, their saintly wisdom into the great carpenter, till not a hair of pollution left, this would be your initial unpolluted true heart. Once the true is complete it will not return into falsity anymore, protect it properly, guard it firmly, so it is self-sufficient and fit to use, which is a timeless, eternally bright, priceless gem. (Wáng zhì-jǐn, 1177—1263, Yuan dynasty, first generation teacher of Quanzhen) The return is the true practice process; the root is the end result of that practice. It is defined variously as 'rising to Heaven', 'obtaining the yang spirit-body', 'the body in the mundane world, the heart in Heavens' etc. very true and consistently so.

It is a techinical formula in alchemy and is not possible or comprehensible without a successful practice of alchemy.

oh noes....!!!! Prayers Against Spirits of the Valley † His Kingdom Prophecy www.hiskingdomprophecy.com/spirits-valley/ May 7, 2011 - Prayers Against Spirits of the Valley are taken from Apostle John Eckhardt's book “Prayers that Rout Demons”

Hunlun (the primal chaos) without borders

Absolutely. No worries thats a totaly different spirit in a completely different valley i am talking about.

Excellent! Well in the spirit of the season lets do the 'valley spirit' next, may be we can glean more from it.

Questions who is that 'one'? what is 'following the Way'? what is 'the Way'? and last but not least "everyone stops fighting" . How so? these are delicious tidbits;)

What does it say, exactly, then? TTC is a governing manual. Governing is always religious since there is no such thing as an atheist nation, a vociferous sliver of over-privileged libertines notwithstanding. Throughout the history any state was a theocracy: be it Aztek or Roman empires where the emperor was the head priest or a living god, or modern day UK sovereign appointing the head of the state church. Ancient China was a polytheistic theocracy, with many local and familial gods (manes) backed by powerful local clans vying to become state-level gods. Concurrently, in those axial times http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age the humans were curiously terrified by an onslaught of foreign spirits which threatened to overran the human world, hence i.g. Psalm 81:9 You shall have no foreign god ... - Bible Hub You must never have a foreign god; you must not bow down before a false god. ... "Let there be no strange god among you; Nor shall you worship any foreign ... Or Thou shalt have no other gods before me - Wikipedia, the ... “Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you Or Such was the historical backdrop against which the chapter 60 recommends to use the local ancestral sacrifices as a regulatory instrument based on following reasoning: Governing of the state must be based on local sacrifices with each family sacrificing to its ancestors only and not elevating a ghost of an individual family to the state of a god. Why not? Because such a god would be a partisan of his clan, giving preference to it and hurting other people. Also the familial gods would fight among themselves (hurting each other), which in turn will imbalance the government of the sages causing it to inadvertently hurt people as well. All that is needed to prevent this havoc is to use the local sacrifices properly, resulting in profusion of beneficial De. So, that’s what chpt 60 says in a simple and elegant pronouncement (as opposed to mind –boggling gibberish produced by the expert translators.) Small fish fry for everyone!

Could be, but thats a small issue. Important thing is that we, after 3000 years have reconstituted the original. Now we can answer the million dollar question: religion or not?

sur...this iteration is much closer to the original. what i find fascinating is that even in The Huáinánzǐ (Chinese: 淮南子; Wade–Giles: Huai-nan Tzu; literally: "The Masters/Philosophers of Huainan") is a 2nd-century BCE Chinese philosophical classic this passage is glossed over, evincing poor understanding, while the famous 'small fry fish' line is completely misunderstood. It means either a radical cultural shift that broke the transmission, happening in 3rd century BC; or that Lao-zi is older by several centuries, dating not from 4th century but from much earlier.

治大國若亨小鮮。Governing a great nation depends on sacrificing 亨 small (family-level) ancestral sacrifices 鮮. 以道蒞天下，In order to make the Under Heaven orderly 其鬼不神；family-level ancestral ghosts should not be (sacrificed to) as nation-level gods 非其鬼不神，and non-family 非其鬼 ghosts should not be (sacrificed to) as nation-level gods. Thus 其神不傷人；domestic gods would not harm people 非其神不傷人，and foreign gods would not harm people 聖人亦不傷人。the sages also would not harm people 夫兩不相傷，when these two (foreign and domestic gods) do not harm, 故德交歸焉。 (Heaven) will send down its beneficiary De. Notes: On struggle against proliferation of non-family and foreign ghosts: 子曰：「非其鬼而祭之，諂也。見義不為，無勇也。」 Wei Zheng: The Master said, "For a man to sacrifice to a spirit which does not belong to him is flattery. To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage." 公冶長: 子曰：「臧文仲居蔡，山節藻梲，何如其知也？」 Gong Ye Chang: The Master said, "Zang Wen kept (worshipped) a large tortoise in a house, on the capitals of the pillars of which he had hills made, and with representations of duckweed on the small pillars above the beams supporting the rafters. Of what sort was his wisdom?" On relationship between sages ghosts and spirits: 禮運: 故聖人參於天地，并於鬼神，以治政也。 Li Yun: Hence the sage forms a ternion with Heaven and Earth, and stands side by side with spiritual beings, in order to the right ordering of government. 禮運: 故聖人作則，必以天地為本，以陰陽為端，以四時為柄，以日星為紀，月以為量，鬼神以為徒，…。 Li Yun: Thus it was that when the sages would make rules (for men), …to use... the spirits breathing (in nature) as associates

plagiarize ˈpleɪdʒərʌɪz/ verb gerund or present participle: plagiarizing take (the work or an idea of someone else) and pass it off as one's own. I never claim any ownership so no.

Given that this chapter is about ghosts I thought I would better understand yours and MH's POV knowing if you ppl treat the subject as fact or fiction. Also I am a mystically inclined dreamer who loves a weird story. Yes, I had experinces with ghosts and saw a spectacular UFO once.

ooh a gentleman of distinction. So MH have you ever see a ghost? Or a UFO? Or anything weird that cant be explained?

Hey Dusty do you belive in ghosts?

this is taken with beer