DynamicEquilibrium

Xing, Ming and social nature can't be considered separatedly practically speaking because together they form a continuum. Cultivation is the cultivation of everything as one, because you can't cut an individual into pieces to cultivate its parts separatedly. Still, the ratio question is important, so how much and where ? Without knowing the proper ratio per sections of the continuum, how to know what we are doing knowing that this continuum has actually much more than 3 sections ?

Yes, chapter 77. As you may know already, in times of food shortage bigger animals which need to eat a lot disapear first, those who survive are the smaller ones, those very tough and consuming the least energy to achieve the highest efficiency for survival. But what these bigger energy-greedy animals feed on in the first place ? On smaller animals hoping to grow bigger themselves !

無理更必爭😁

Isn't the Way always about letting something return to the nature, to let the nature govern? But we are human beings, always trying to rule over everything and everyone, thinking we are the best, the smartest, the only one to be right... To let the nature rule so that nothing is left unattended must really be a very long and difficult Way to follow, a real painful struggle to go through. Different teachings, different teachers, different learners...all forgetting to bow together as one to the nature, the only legitimate master and owner of truth for all living beings. 天之道, 損有餘而補不足. 人之道, 則不然, 損不足以, 奉有餘. How to let the Way of the nature re-order our human ways so that they return to the nature's norm?

Thank you so much for your honesty 🌳 Very broadly even.

性 and 命 belong to 道 category. No matter what we do, even discussing here, we are applying them. What one will learn from a teacher is how to apply them (for whom purposes is another problem), so a criteria could be wether one as recieved own practice formula already or not.

Who or what fixed the correct terminology and meanings originally ?

Exactly. By definition, traditional knowlege transmission won't happen outside real human relationships between one generation and the next. What i don't understand is why knowlege about 性 and 命 should be exclusive to Neidan ? Taoism is to flexible and versatile for that.

Need help to cross the street?

https://bitterwinter.org/daoism-under-sinicization-4-the-sad-life-of-sinicized-daoists/?fbclid=IwQ0xDSwKQoLdjbGNrApCgnGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAAEevMDiTAgs7o_2i-OQ54tr80sQChVtYfRi1JZ2kbinRSIB3nF034DNwets5u8_aem_c95HkgTxDxPsGb4HoOedvw They don't wear British boots that's for sure.

How to know that he or anyone else did recieve high quality family education or not ? From spiritual powers ?

You are a real 君子 who 自強不 息, as you said, no wonder the friendly gesture. I respect you very much, your words tells everything about quality.

@ChiDragon Impossible to operate a software without hardware. In the same way, impossible to separate intangible phenomenas from tangible ones, just like we can't separate meanings from caracters, letters, words and sentences etc. If this is what you meant in this thread from the beginning, i couldn't agree more with you. If you used AI to prove a point about virtuality, you are really naughty because AI is somewhat a symptomatic reflection of the body/mind differenciation disease affecting human beings in various ways. Please have a look at this article https://qi-encyclopedia.com/article.php?&id=47 Without 理, no ways to explore 氣, 性 and 命 real meanings. We can't reasonably blame Neidan people for having no interest in discovering the 理 of things, it might break their hearts into pieces doing so and you know how it is difficult to heal a heart arising from a stone hard 信 within one's 命 after it was broken, especially if it was the main 'frequency'. By the way, if we speak about resonance between living beings and between living beings and the nature, we can't use terms like 'vibratory frequencies' or 'quantum entaglements' from physics anymore, it would ruin the feeling. Emphasizing the meaning and value of '求大同, 存小異, 和而不同, 周而不比, 齊物共生' is what i will try my best to do here.

Thank you for the reminder. Neidan is a just a practical mean to reach the achievements sought after within Taoist spirituality, so actually it doesn't matter that much as long as there is a respectful and open minded attitude between Neidanists and non believers don't you think ? Immortal just like saint, it is a posthumous title, and there is some very substantial real life wisdom in their words too.

The point of peace.

'君子坦蕩蕩, 小人長戚戚' (Yes, i use a Confucius quote) 性命雙修 not dependent to a particular technic, singing, dancing , gardening, cooking, painting, writing, playing and instrument etc can be the media to practice, Taiji, Qigong, martial arts too of course, we just need the principles to turn skills into 性命雙修.

As you know, it is not easy to hold one's breath to dive to a sufficient depth to find out that actually Neidan did an appropriation and reinterpretation of these terms.

I'd say by trying one's best to keep a neutral point of view while coming across different versions during our exploration. I guess neither absolute truth nor absolute falsehood can exist within what basically smells like working through relative dynamics. The contradiction seems more to come from sectarian dogmatic positions fighting each others rather than from a mind incapacity to organise its own relationships with reality, but yes the feedback is very anoying. Why do you ask this question Forest of clarity ? No reason to believe anything because of the extensive practical experience i have in his method. One of my teacher teacher's learnt directly from him. I'd say its not for everybody, not for no one either, it depends on individual inborn caracteristics. He gets nothing wrong about this particular version of Taoist practice, he can explain it very detaily and accurately, what he can't do, is to tell you if this version is good for you or not.

Completly agree with you about the opposition you suggest, like a conflict between fire and metal, they may need more than only one mediator to facilitate their relationships and increase the efficiency of their communications. In opinion, it is very useful to know at least some about the background of a particular definition, for exemple, the very knowlegeable martial arts teacher in the video provides almost copy/pasted definitions and interpretations of those from Chen Yining, a scholar of taoism who extracted theories and practices from Neidan texts and participated in the establishment of the Chinese Taoist Association, a Chinese government religious institution whose quarterheads are located in the Baiyunguan in Beijing. His theories and practices may have became what we can call the 'modern general method of taoist meditation'. It is perfectly fine to move into that direction if it resonates, nobody has the right to say that's it is wrong to go there just because this or that nobody chose another direction, it is just that the particular culture of the academic, religious, scientific, political, medical, military etc background and their infinite possible combinations will become the environement and in my opinion it is something we should at least be aware of, because if i am a dog, i really don't want to end up being raised by cats and then start to meow and purr believing to be one, later in life the traumatic realization that i actually lived for years like a pussy could be terrible!!

Hopefully in the future these very precious and key field scholars will write another book titled : 'Reality Trippers Forgotten Daoism and the Predicament of the Modern World'

Thank you, a good reference indeed!

Thank you. The OP ask fundamental questions and makes a very good observation: "there are actually many "unknowable" elements to human existence. Why does one person have a good response with a certain method, while another person suffers a lot of setbacks with the same method, or even has a terrible side effect? Who can really explain it? Precisely because these things are hard to say or know, you don’t hear many people in Taoist temples saying, “This is the one and only way to practice” or “It will definitely end bad if you practice that way.” There are nearly infinite variables in life. So many things really varies from person to person." In the same way, it is not rare that what we call 'love' between two people end up in the killing of one of the partner. Not rare too that our choices and decisions in many different areas of life make us end up in very difficult and complicated situations, troubles, disorders, problems, diseases. Taoism has ways to answer such questions, individually, it is called taoist counselling. There are reasons underlying tangible and intangible phenomenas that can be calculated, measured and analyzed which can explain why for exemple this particular individual should not practice by this way, and methods to establish a tailor made 'training program' for that particular individual. From the point of view of taoist counselling, it is a daring bet to engage head first into something without knowing the odds. Why nowadays we can't find these taoist ways in taoist temples, Neidan schools, online Neigong academies etc is very simple, the speaker in the video learnt taoist practice at the Baiyunguan in Beijing if i recall correctly. This is a very special environment with its historical and cultural history, but unfortunately the original meaning and purpose of this place may have change into something else around the 50's. Today, 99% of the taoist channels linking to the west originate in this 'something else' which is devoid of the original value, meaning and purpose of taoism as a prehistorical intangible cultural heritage, but as you can feel from your 9th sense, we are almost arrived at the gate.

Absolutlely right, same goes for me from your posts and writing style. I don't regret to have taken a step out, now i have a new friend.

It is a reminder to myself to strive to live by this way. So far it eased my heart from a lot of burden, improved my health, clarified my mind, pacified internal conflicts, harmonized my human relationships...all this is very real, so i can say that the principles of dynamic equilibrium applied to individual psychosomatic system and very ordinary daily life activities and interactions have great meaning and value.

I was joking, i couldn't care less about the taoist police.