snowymountains

Lights typically are meditation flagposts, ie nimittas, not unconscious projections, they have a different origin. Here however the OP is seeing imaginary, a projection from his unconscious, and wants to know what it is. Ideally psychoanalysis is the best fit for finding out but the time commitment is *very significant*. Psychotherapy is a good second best fit, depending on the training of the therapist ( eg a CBT therapist may not be the best fit for this particular question ) - which is why the OP may ask them if they've got experience with daydreaming. It would be good to be aware what psychotherapists do before criticising the advice to see one. From your posts it seems to me you believe they do things they don't do ( eg "diseases" , it's clinical psychologists and psychiatrists that treat eg psychosis, not psychotherapists ), or believe they work exclusively with eg disorders, which is not the case. The alternative would be to speculate here, which I won't do, as this won't help the OP answer his question. Hence the advice to find someone close to his place who can.

The ball may even eventually cover everything and then you will be at 1st Jhana. This is not symbolic, it's a sign/flagpost for meditation progression. ( The colour doesn't matter much and is different for each meditator )

I can't comment on whether it blocks the neidan in specific, as I don't practice Taoism, but indeed that's the glaring gap that insight meditation/shikantaza and open awareness practices leave open, unconscious processes. They don't leave it 100% as a gap of course as e.g. even baseline mindfulness ie sensing a bodily reaction next to a person provides some contact with unconscious processing. There has been discussion on other threads that eg latent memories may come to surface etc that is all true. However it's not the full power of the unconscious, which can never be fully brought to consciousness as-is, there simply aren't enough brain layers there at the outer layers which compose the conscious mind to store everything in the inner ones. Open awareness practices are excellent but deep unconscious processes will stay under the radar ( automatic reactions will also stay under the radar ), it's those deep processes that drive fundamental changes in life or how someone approaches life. The unconscious doesn't understand time, only "now" is highly symbolic and "decoding" the symbolism is what translates its message. Now as to if that blocks neidan, it blocks a ton of things in life when the unconscious and the conscious are not aligned, so it wouldn't be a surprise if it blocks a spiritual goal. To give credit though as these practices do quiet the mind, this also increases the amount of times someone acts based on what the unconscious is suggesting. What's needed to unlock the full power of the unconscious though, extends beyond that.

Are Afghan/Kashmirian/Parthian/Chinese origins backed by historical research? This is interesting, if you have the time, could you please give pointers as to who has done this research?

I'm only responsible for what I wrote though, not for how you interpret it. In any case, there lots of reasons someone can see a therapist for, it's not only for disorder treatment or seeking a behavioural adjustment as you suggest. Eg understanding why things happen is one of the common reasons, which was the question in the OP. Anything that occurs systematically either like in this post through daydreaming ( not because of it ), or a recurring dream is worth exploring. It's ok, it's clear you were reacting to something different to what I wrote but it was also worth discussing that psychotherapists are not there only for disorder treatment. They're also infinitely more likely to help the OP find why it's happening, than internet forums.

The way I read your response, you seem to assume its about correcting something behaviourally, but never said anything of the sort. The goal may well be ... to understand why he sees what he sees, which was the question in the OP.

That's up to the OP, he can go or not go, up to him/her

The therapist will help him understand why he sees violence which is something he wants to understand.

Daydreaming activities typically peak at teen years, don't know the OPs age, s/he can know if that's a factor ( no need to write it, imo online discussions offer zero value at helping OP with their question) . Maybe the trigger was the visualisation, maybe something else, maybe a combination. As to what he sees, it could be a number of things, none of which is a metaphysical parasite however. Let's not go back 500 years when bacteria were thought to be spirits. @Chang dao ling In your shoes I'd honestly call a few licensed psychotherapists close to where you live and ask them if they've got professional experience with daydreaming as well as working with people in your age group and take it from there. It's probably best to ignore what's written here, find a therapist and work with them.

bumping this one, between Wilhelm and Huang which one is the most accurate translation? Also, Wilhelm had written a commentary text on the I CHING, which is a separate volume to his translation of the text. Is that a good quality commentary ?

It's called Naitan, I wish to remain anonymous 🙂

Hakuin, it's his fourth energy technique. In terms of execution it's similar to what I've read here about MCO but don't practice MCO myself so can't fully compare.

Nobody said it's bad, it's not an ethics or a religious discussion, the question by the OP was why is this happening.

It's not about teachers, I had teachers in the past and currently do have a monk teacher, from whom I learned a lot and respect a lot. I'm not anti-mediation, nor anti-monks, teachers. For *some things*, like removing conditioning, therapeutic techniques are way more efficient than meditation. Meditation indeed connects to some degree the conscious to the unconscious and "stuff" does become conscious, it's just not the most effective way to bring the unconscious to the conscious and practice while just sitting will miss things as well. Without a long response, at the risk of some sloppiness , any interaction that triggers overly positive or negative emotions is worth gold in terms of looking inside us and some the data that comes out won't be activated from meditation while sitting. The retreats & trauma topic is a long discussion, Gabor Mate included it as one of the main topics in a recent workshop. What you say is correct, it does happen, I've seen it too but it's also a long discussion, as to why, who should go, who shouldn't etc. It's also not always possible to know in advance what will someone experience. Btw I don't conflate the Unus Mundus with the Tao or anything else, I don't practice Taoism anyhow but conflating between different traditions is effectively cognitively bringing spiritual experiences, which can only create an ontological salad, a la Blavatsky. Imo meditation is for things like concentration and spiritual experiences. Eg samadhis or experiencing interconnectedness between living beings and perhaps more experiences that I haven't had yet. Therapy will not provide any of these. It can't and it's anyhow out of scope for therapy ( unless it's Jungian analysis, which is also spiritual ). But for removing conditioning, therapy is king.

As it's something that's impossible to prove and at the same time impossible disprove, it's like the universe is trolling us... I ignore them because what is one to make out of them, fry their brain if it was a synchrinicity? Impossible to answer. And let's say, for the sake of the argument, there even was a way to tell in retrospect. Then what? What is one supposed to do with their next dream, assume it has predictive value and act on it? They're bound to be disappointed after 1-2-3 dreams. Hence I ignore the cosmic trolling