DynamicEquilibrium

What is 100% correct then? 'Ming is Yuanqi Xing is Yuan shen' ?

Yes, psychosomatic. You are right about 性, 性格, 品性, same goes for 人性, 人格, 人品. At this point i may disapear, i feel the FaceBookImmortals agents are on their way and as a 芻狗 i can only surrender to the Nature's authority.

Sounds like the opposite direction to 'return to the root', or at least to somewhere at the middle of the trunk.

This sect appeared around 16th century if i recall correctly, it is a new branch or even just a new leave from a very big tree.

Maybe because 身 is related to 性 and 命 more than it seems. 身心 would represent the 先天/後天 systemic structure of a particular individual, or individual 'body(性命)/mind(心)' system. Does it sound reasonable?

It is interesting to use a picture from a text that only initiated adepts of a particular sect would understand to support and prove a point to an outsider. Is it reverse manipulation or just the PR communication style of the sect?

Yes, so it is true that 氣 doesn't exist and that 道 was made up by 老子.

Well put ! 🙇🏻 If we couldn't demonstrate what we say, it would be very embarassing. I'm glad you and i came to some kind of 'friendly resonance', it is so sad when discussions turns into the creation of adversarial dynamics rather than collaborative ones, very very sad, especially on a taoist forum 🤣

Some of the quotes from 淮南子 i colllected for a work before: About 形: 「夫形者，生之所也；氣者，生之元也；神者，生之制也。一失位，則三者傷矣。是故聖人使人各處其位，守其職，而不得相干也。」 「形者，生之舍也，氣之處也，神之本也。形散而氣亡，氣亡而神散。」 「故夫形者非其所安也而處之則廢，氣不當其所充而用之則泄，神非其所宜而行之則昧。此三者，不可不慎守也。」 「形獨立而無氣，則不生；氣獨立而無神，則不明。」 About 氣: 「原氣者，乃在形先。充塞天地，稟受陰陽，變化無窮，不可為象，其動乃生。」 「氣和則神明，形安；氣亂則神昏，形弊。」 「今人之所以眭然能視，䁝然能聽，形體能抗，而百節可屈伸，察能分白黑、視醜美，而知能別同異、明是非者，何也？氣為之充而神為之使也。」 About 神: 「神者，不用視而見，不用聽而聞，不用慮而知，隱微難見，萬物莫不由之而生。」 「養神者與道為一，棄神者雖存形氣，終不達於真智。」 「何以知其然也？凡人之志，各有所在，而神有所系者，其行也，足蹪趎埳、頭抵植木而不自知也，招之而不能見也，呼之而不能聞也。耳目非去之也，然而不能應者，何也？神失其守也。故在於小則忘於大，在於中則忘於外，在於上則忘於下，在於左則忘於右；無所不充，則無所不在。是故貴虛者，以毫末為宅也。」 (This one above is an explaination of selective consciousness showing how 神 determine our perception of the reality) Consequences of imbalances between these three: 「今夫狂者之不能避水火之难，而越沟渎之险者，岂无形神气志哉？然而用之异也。失其所守之位，而离其外内之舍，是故举错不能当，动静不能中，终身运枯形于连嵝列埒之门，而蹪蹈于污壑阱陷之中。虽生俱与人钧，然而不免为人戮笑者，何也？形神相失也。故以神为主者，形从而利；以形为制者，神从而害。贪饕多欲之人，漠昏于势利，诱慕于名位，冀以过人之智植于高世，则精神日以耗而弥远，久淫而不还，形闭中距，则神无由入矣。是以天下时有盲妄自失之患。此膏烛之类也，火逾然而消逾亟。」 ... : 「神靜則氣順，氣順則形安，三寶相養，生生不息。」 The purpose is not to use textual evidence to support an argument, but to share too few quotes from one of the countless reference materials (sorry to leave them untranslated and unexplained, unlike AI) i find relevant to some ideas discussed in this topic.

It is always difficult to understand something we didn't learn. If Neidan practitionners can't explain something in common langage with a clear enough definition and high enough resolution to outsiders who is to blame? The one who can't understand or the one who can't explain? Maybe none of them because in such situation the obvious fact is that both didn't start to learn yet. @ChiDragon You won't find the science of taoism, or more broadly speaking chinese traditionnal Life sciences, in Neidan, Qigong, Taijiquan etc for a very simple reason. If you use 微信, the official account 身心道工房 might be of interest to you, last year my teacher's teacher shared some ideas there.

@ChiDragon , this speech given in 1922 may inspire you: http://www.millionbook.com/mj/l/liangqichao/000/055.htm

哪裡哪裡, i sincerly enjoy the discussion and learn a lot from it.

Thank you so much, it echoes to something in my own experience. When we can find some kind of 'resonance ' and start to share something with the nature and other living beings around, all these differences start to fade away. When this something lies in a field outside of our human capacities to concieve, the biggest hindrance to enjoy the very real feeling seems always to be our incapacity to say 'i don't know '.

Of course ! Quantity and quality of energy might be an important distinction to make and understand while we are trying to explore energy transformation processes such as Neidan.

Thank you, it is clear that you experienced an increase in quantity from your Taiji and Qigong practice, how about changes in quality?

It is more and more difficult to find a 'real' teacher in China nowadays, especially since taoism and other traditions are under an ongoing process of scinicization, but from your researches and self-taught knowlege, how do you define the theories, practices, applications, purposes etc of taoist traditional education and training?

Yes, the more the sphere of knowlege increases in volume, the more its contact surfaces with the unknown extends. 99% of the interpretations of 道德經 are very vague and misleading because they come out from untrained body/mind systems.

Agree about afterborn differences. For inborn differences, very small babies in the kindergarden already show clear individualities without having being affected by their environements yet. Please, can you explain what you mean by the term core ?

Yes, same problem as using AI where human trained natural capacities are required. It is one of the purpose of 性命雙修 to reconstruct the proper 'operating system and device'. Being a knowlegeable native speaker doesn't help here. An exemple of something we can observe everywhere around the world are brothers and sisters, parents and children, this generation and the preceding one... not understanding each others despite speaking the same language. Do you think you, me or anyone could understand messages from 1000, 2000, 3000 years ago if today we can't understand each others ?

Another kind of leftover (not being serious): East: Associated to Wood, very good at networking (Wood wide web they said). West: Associated to Metal, very good at cutting into pieces. So, if you have an issue with your gall blader in western medecine they cut it off, in eastern medecine they try to return the whole organism to a state of balance to support the self-healing process of the sick part. Two different visions about life, values and the world (三觀). Is it possible to read analog signals with a digital device ? If we think about chinese caracters as some kind of 'ancestral holographic recordings', then we need the proper device to extract and render the multi-dimensional meanings, like in the movie 'Arrival' (2016).

Makes me think about the differences between analog and digital signals.

Language is a determining factor in the formation of an individual's conceptual world. Without enough mastery of the original language, concepts will necessarily be flawed since the system allowing us to form them in our minds will be lacking. By learning through translations, or even in the current version of the langage, one learn 2nd, 3rd... 100, 000th hands informations about the original meaning of these sounds and symbols.

We share the same main idea, just applied in different ways for different purposes. Unfathomable conceptual depths if we are speaking of nature's intelligence and wisdom at work within natural processes. Thanks for the reminder, to solve this problem we may need a way to know and do something with our own pre-heavenly and post-heavenly bias, living beings with human shape are very subjective indeed.

If i get it right, you are reffering to two different phases of a same cycle? Practiced separatedly through different technics or together as one within any technics ? Thank you for sharing, it allows me to verify and confirm once again the principles behind my own practice. In any serious investigation into the nature of things it makes sense that personal beliefs and opinions should be left out of the way. For instance, i try to understand where heavy loaded concepts such as morality could fit into a study of the inherent principles of Life? Of course it's perfectly fine to have one's own personal beliefs and opinions, a lot of key scientists in history had their own, maybe that was their talent or trained abilities to know how to make and understand differences that allowed them to not mix things up.

Since they are so closely intertwined within living matter, the Bio-chemical and Bio-physical models perhaps can't reasonably be considered separatly despite their differences. A possible cause of confusion could be to introduce unrelated concepts into a subject which basically pertains to natural sciences.