Taoist Texts

  Qiu Chuji seems to feel that this was the case (bold emphasis mine):

 

hmmm...no.  According to Eskildsen this quote belongs not to Qiu but to some anonymous commentator (page 94) 

 

What is described above is “the Exercise .....”. This is the method of divine immortals that has not changed for a hundred million years!

 

Also what is described on that page above is not an exercise nor a method in our sense of the words but rather a record of of two individuals turning into dragons and other two jumping from a tower.

I thought , strictly speaking, the Yijing was a Confucian text... 

of course it is. the core of Yijing its guas were first invented and used to prognosticate for war expeditions and bloody sacrifice to ancestors. They were used by the tribal kings and specialist divinators cum king's advisor. which and who of these are daoist in any respect?

. Furthermore it is known and accepted that many of the elements of mature neidan have much earlier origins, dating back to Ge Hong, Shangqing texts such as the Huang ting jing, etc.

 

its quite like saying that the electric bulb dates back to the iron age because it was then that glass and iron were first produced.

 

But i understand what you are saying, thanks.

That is true, which is what I tried to emphasize by stating it was a root of Daoism

I dont know what has Yijing to do with daoism at all but thats just me;)

 

 

 such as neidan often being given a Tang Dynasty origin at earliest by some scholars but likely having more ancient origins.

 

why?

 

In any case, does anyone have a source for the concept of the so-called 'Sons of Reflected Light'?

 

sure. they were invented by this gentleman

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee-style_t'ai_chi_ch'uan

 

in this book 

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Chinese-Art-Tai-Chuan/dp/0850303877

 

 

 

 

 

I never heard of this while reading Daoist texts or scholarly works 

 

there is a reason for that;)

Yes... as 'practice' is not natural (according to Baopuzi)... there is a sense of a primitive natural following of nature/universe... which was likely lost or misunderstood at some point. 

Traditional theory is that humans devolve rather than evolve.

 

On gua i remember reading somewhere that first jiaguwen (divination bone inscriptions) used chinese digits like 六  and 九 and switched to solid and broken lines much later. That would make guas and Yijing younger than traditionally thought, its just one of the oldest received piece of writing , the origin of which is beyond the observable timeline. Cant find the link thou.

The text of the Zhouyi may be ... or even the founding of the Zhou dynasty (1046BC) but the Gua themselves attributed to Fu Xi predate this by a long way.

I am not aware of any archaeological or historical  evidence of that but i like Fuxi and his missus. she probably lent a tail  hand  too

 

IMO, daoism starts with Dao... 

the paradigm of it - may be. but the concrete received practices and verbiage are a bit younger.

3) Daoism being the primordial Chinese spiritual tradition, having its ultimate roots in prehistory and later among legendary sage-rulers like Fuxi, Huangdi, etc. In this scenario the Yijing is considered as a root of Daoism.

 

Yijing is fairly new rather than primordial since its text can not be earlier than  f"ounding of the Shang dynastyvary from about 1760 to 1520 bce,"

Always wary of people who call Chinese characters "symbols". Who is this Linnell?

a discoverer of a hitherto unknown chinese concept

 

凡 心 之 形 Always : the form of the heart/mind

What are your thoughts on the origins of Daoism? I've seen three primary views, among some others, that people tend to put forth:

 

1) Daoism originating with Laozi/the Daodejing and later with Zhuangzi and other classical material (like the Huainanzi, etc.)

 

2) Daoism originating with Zhang Daoling and Tianshi Dao/Way of Celestial Masters.

 

3) Daoism being the primordial Chinese spiritual tradition, having its ultimate roots in prehistory and later among legendary sage-rulers like Fuxi, Huangdi, etc. In this scenario the Yijing is considered as a root of Daoism.

 

To ask at which point did  daoism appear is really to ask what is daoism? so why people dont ask that question outright? because they know they aint gonna like the answer.

I'd like to start a list of language -- words, phrases, etc -- that we (that is, English speakers, but I'm open to suggestions in other languages) use in everyday speech without really considering how meaningless what we're saying actually is, or how wrong it actually is. 

 

 

This is my fav pet peeve. People just dont know what they are actually saying. A sure sign of that is an incomplete or a unspecific sentence.

 

"It would be good if...." Good for whom exactly?. 

 

Closer to the subjects of this forum is the martial arts befuddlement. It goes like this:

 

"A good martial artist should be able to fight using his art"

 

Fight, Carl!

 

The poor befuddled fella who says 'fight' has no mental stamina to try and finish this sentence specifying whom exactly the MA player should fight.

 

A 80 year old grandma? Mike Tyson? Several people or just one? Larger, smaller?

 

Should it be no holds barred? Life or death real fight? A friendly sparring? What would a win or loss prove?

 

Whats interesting about this notion that it is so self-evident at first blush. "Martial Arts=fighting" ...Duhhh!  On closer consideration it is one of the silliest things ever uttered with certainty.

I was practicing for around a year and found I was having pain in my legs and couldn't figure out why. It turns out I was twisting my legs the entire time instead of twisting my actual waist. So I started trying to twist my waist instead of my legs, but twisting the waist without the legs hurts my back. Any advice?

 twist both of legs and waist in a complementary sync for a safe and gentle exercise. Also, if you are seriously into TJQ please be aware that according to Chen Xiaowang its is not TJQ until your dantian starts to rotate. He also says that almost no TJQ teacher knows how to do it or even knows about it.

. The viewpoint you put across is a common misconception. ...So lest you confuse others please don't perpetuate misconceptions.

I am not sure whom you are addressing here. Is that Lu Huayang or yours truly?

My question now is can the Rinzai & Soto schools in zen work well synergistically with neidan practices?

Liu Huayang, the monk who wrote the book on neidan seems not to think so

 

 

For the fourth question, he asked, "Could reading paradoxical phrases  (koan)  to seek to meditate be the true Tao?"

 

In reply, Liu said, "If it is a deviant school of Buddhism, we therefore say, 'When they read paradoxical phrases to seek to meditate, they vie to personally prevail.' If it is the true Tao of Buddhism, you must first practise dual cultivation with real effectiveness. Do not ask about paradoxical phrases."

 

(Liu Huayang. The Huimingjing. Trl. Nicholson)

Type, less.

Practice, more.

Repeat.

 

don't ask if you are in a hole

keep digging

All sect masters are shaman and they are taught to be wrathful by their predecessors.

 

Hi JLP, are you talking about neidan sects?

Sadly evolutionism is still strong in the mainstream, .

Thank you for this summary. The E. might be abandoned due to PC multi-culti pressures in academia but in collective western psyche it is alive and well as evinced by the cultural tourism approach to ancient heritage. The tourists believe themselve to be smarter than natives so they can pick and choose like tourists on a souvenir shopping spree:

 

'Whats that? Philosophy?That sounds cute  i will take that! Ugh retention? Thats not fun, thats stupid, no thanks.What we got here immortality methods? Give me all of it. Religion, nah i am not some kind of superstitious  moron. Keep it'.

 

The tourists do not understand that its a package deal. Trying to get it piecemeal will result in bringing home but useless junk.

 

Now to contrast with the E-word:

 

The earliest attested reference to the European myth of the Ages of Man 500 BC-350 BC appears in the late 6th century BC works of the Greek poet Hesiod's Works and Days(109-126).this means that people lived in peace Hesiod, a deteriorationist, identifies the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, the Heroic Age, and the Iron Age. With the exception of the Heroic Age, each succeeding age was worse than the one that went before.

My teacher told me I had to give up Seinfeld reruns to be able to achieve the red baby.

i cant that and cheers is all that binding me to the material plane....where everybody knows your name..

If you say so. To me, it looks like YouTube video X8rxPrV-tn4.

eh some people are just not into seinfield which i find incomprehensible

What does not agree with me is evolutionism.

 

whats that?

 watching a random YouTube video while eating my lunch isn't a priority for me.

 

its not random. its a classic.

What you said about Quanzhen Dao is completely wrong,

Hi;)

 

care to support your statement somehow? Thanks

To sum up the previous exposition:

 

Alchemy is a religion which includes a relatively insignificant subset of elixir creation.

Neidan is a non-religious energetic practice of elixir creation.

 

 

The counterpart of the western alchemiy in China is a Taoist religion of Quanzhen which requires observation of moral precepts, celibacy, vegetarianism, religious rituals, heremeticism, monasticism, charity, humility and almost as an afterthought, as something that is supposed to happen automatically based on the merits of the above - elixir creation.

Thanks for sharing Hagar

Discussions such as these are not really all that fruitful, and can possibly lead to confusion  

 

I´ve practiced internal alchemy for a decade, yet haven´t started to grasp the initial subtleties yet. 

 

 

 

If you want to practice, find a teacher 

I dont mean to pry but if i may..is that how you started 10 years ago? With a teacher?

How do you experience your neidan pill? Is it in meditation?

actually yes. At first you have to be still for it to incept, then as it matures it is felt inside at all times.