exorcist_1699

What you describe is nothing strange , sorry to tell that there is NO accomplishment

Taoism is a huge system involves many areas , neidan is only one of the topics among them . Regretfully , most of the readers here can't read Chinese ...; even so , even people here can't discuss the differences between the Middle School and West School , even that only a small portion of of them know Wu-Liu and be entangled by it , so sad it is ... yet there are still many issues that are left untouched , for example : 1) Since all superb Taoist alchemical ways are related to cosmology , an arena of modern physics, why people don't pay more attention to it ? Taoism views human body as a miniature of the much bigger cosmos, so there likely is somewhat relation/similarity in between the Magic gateway ('玄關') , the most important issue in neidan practice , and the black/white hole ? 2) The highest Taoist achievement is said to be attaining Shen, a special form of Wisdom , what is its relation to AI or other forms of human intelligence , even to the iOT ? 3) Taoist daozhan (collection of Taoist classics ) is so huge that to exploit it involves issues of text mining and big data , anybody ever thinks of talking about it ? 4) Forever youth is what Taoism affirms , it involves issues of skin care, regeneration , DNA.. that seldom people here touch. 5) Acupuncture nowadays is widely applied on animals/pets : dog ,cat ..when they get sick , but can it be applied on a parrot , dolphin or octopus ? What forms of distribution of qi on them ? Say, how the DU channel runs on an octopus ? What acupuncture points we should choose when curing a starfish ?What is its relation to biological holography ? Just raise some of them so that this post not appears too tedious. In fact, I view Taoism as a system challenges every aspect of Western knowledge system ,and what the real destiny of Chinese civilization should look and provide ... there are a lot of topics for people to write about .

Of course, working as an exorcist .

There are many ways to reach Tao or Enlightenment ; different ways may give people different subjective feelings, yours is only one of them , so don't say that yours is definitely the right one although capability of reading original Zen or Taoist writings undoubtedly gives you an edge over others ,yet it conversely requires you to behave more cautiously .

Although not the Taoist school who holds the highest way , likely it is the "Middle School" or the " West School " that gets the prestige , we still have to recognize the contribution of Wu-Liu in spreading Taoist alchemy in recent centuries. Its emphasize on the importance of retaining jing as the pre-requirement for accomplishing physical eternity is significant. Comparing it with the Buddhist way, and converge the best elements of them , gives us humans the most workable keys and steps to attain eternal life, very different from other religions'. Claiming that Wu-Liu as "fake" is over-stating. On the whole, WU-Liu's problems is no big ones, of course, you have to differentiate it from its so-called modern followers.

Most of the readers here can't read Chinese , especially classical Chinese, better be more patient . Besides , to be fair , you have to differentiate people who claim to be followers of the WuLliu school from what really are expressed by the Wu and Liu masters in their writings. I think, the significance of WuLiu 's writings is their emphasize , much serious than others', on the importance of retaining of jing for attaining everlasting life , which I wonder whether any lady here can fully understand its meaning to men .. for example , Taomeow complained that we guys talk too much about this subject on this forum ..

A deep knowledge of Zen, not those what we are told of in the West : " mindfulness " , " Living at this moment"..etc , can be the precaution against the potential troubles of many practices ; people are told to accumulate energy in their body , but to some point , it becomes so huge that they don't know how to harness it .

Follow what Sebastian said can be helpful although what he mentioned is Post-heavenly qi stuff ; it really depends on how serious a symptom of short-sightedness people get . Minor troubles on our body always can be cured by the post-heavenly qi.

By the way , regarding all organs' jing risen and condensed at different parts of the eyes : liver's to iris, kidney's to pupil , lung's to sclera.., to be fair , it does relate to the Indian ideas..

Definitely we can . Jing , how much and how high a quality of it we get , is crucial to our eyesight . In this sense, Taoism once again grasps the essentials of the human body, far superior than the Western medicine . In fact, at the bottom part of our body , we get jing + qi accumulated ; at the top, we get shen + jing , all organs' jing risen and condensed there , so that we can see . As we get older and older, our eyesight starts to deteriorate....; the key solution to solve this therefore is to reverse the jing ( changing it into qi otherwise it can't go upwards) so as to replenish the brain (' 還精補腦') ( also the eyes ) , most of the eyes troubles then can be solved. In fact , by Taoist criteria, how good an eyesight a person gets is one of the ways to identify a master : Hardly can Taoists recognize a master who wears a pair of glasses ( other religions may say that it is okay , nothing related, but definitely not from Taoist) . It is said that the second patriarch of the South School , Shi Tai (石泰) , was identified as some person extraordinary by his main apostle at their first encounter because Shi, at 85 , was capable of doing his own sewing job : leading a cotton thread through a needle's eye...

In fact, you should let the accumulated jing and qi guides you and don't add any extra minds or expectations to it. In some sense , Taoist way is cleverer than the Buddhist . Buddhist way is like a kitten which tries to grasp its own tail , whenever it moves , it distance itself from the target and fails ; it is like whenever you expect to get enlightenment , inside you an overeager, undeserved idea arises, making you not capable of getting the no-mind , and without a prolonged no-mind , never will enlightenment come upon you..; Taoist way is not solely dependent on the mind, its doing a series of self denial so as to upgrade itself, but also about the time , the jing and qi's help ..etc. Elements from I-Ching and TCM does provide helps that the Indian lineage doesn't get .

Yes, exactly .

Sorry to say that most people's understandings of Zen, or those Zen-like stuff , are distorted , if not seriously wrong . In order to make your meditation productive, the path you should follow is : Eliminate the daily fluctuating minds => attain no-Mind and hold it as long as you can => when a stop of ordinary breathing come upon you , you nourish and hold it with no intention => emergence of embryonic breathing =>.... Only a mindless Mind is the Right Mind ( '正念' ) that people should pursue , all other intentions, say " clear the mind of illusion , create peace in life.." , for example , are mental activities that already adding extra minds to it ; in fact , you can't attain no-mind by adding an extra mind ( an intention to clear something or an expectation to create .., whatever it is ) to it ; by using such way of searching , it is not strange that most practitioners can't attain a mindless Mind, and therefore can't understand the core of Taoist practice and the saying that a grasp of Zen can be some kind of shortcut to achieving the Taoist Golden Dan. Sadly, what many people rather like to do is to deliberately circulate their so-called Micro- Cosmic Circulation . But if there is no open of the Magic Gateway, there is no genuine MCC.. ,so what they do is in the end all in vain ...

Sorry to say that this will not lead you to Wuwei or anything productive, rather it leads you to unproductive/ pseudo- emptiness ('假空' ) that people are already repeatedly warned of not to be trapped in.

Quite the opposite, the advancing Taoist superb Mind, its main characteristics are that you can sense a totally different Mind standing out of your existing ,daily one, even in your dreaming, even outside of or half-detaching from your body...

A Buddhist or Taoist superb Mind, or what people call it a super-consciousness, of course does exist , but its formation needs the following preconditions , and will have certain features allowing you to identify the emergence of it : Precondition: First , a stop of your daily fluctuating minds , ie, all ups and downs of your ideas , needed to be eliminated ; then some kind of spiritual Oneness starts to consolidate , and it should persist.. And , some spiritual symptoms , like what are stated below ,will gradually appear inside you to foretell the coming of it : - From time to time you sit there , an extreme spiritual calmness suddenly comes upon you even you are situated in a very noisy environment and not intentionally striving for it ; -The spiritual ,always existing boundary that separates your body and the external environment starts to dissolve, making your mind entering a "Chaos" status; -Distance and physical barriers no longer block you from sensing things , for example , you can hear whispers clearly even they are hundreds feet away, or you can see things on the other side of a wall ; -You suddenly find whatever knowledge ,say Quantum mechanics, Linux kernel, Differential Geometry or the Chinese Kanji :- ) ..., which you were taught and found very difficult , now appears a piece of cake to you ;

From Buddhist point of view, lucid dream is far from Enlightenment . From Taoist point of view, even Enlightenment is only half of the job , the spiritual part, you complete; the highest Taoist achievement is to qi-lize your whole physical body , and then consolidate ( materialize ) it at whatever places you like ( ie , teleportation ) , not just in one place, but in many places simultaneously ; you can get many splits of yourself appearing in many locations and doing many things at the same time... Besides, Taoist or Buddhist way is totally different from the scientific one..

"When death comes, you are ready" definitely is a wrong translation . In the times when TTJ was written , Buddhism had not entered China ; and there ,originally ,was no afterlife or incarnation concept in Taoism . Translating " 没身不殆" as "When death comes, you are ready" is wrong. It should be : " For your whole life, you will then be free of hazards and misfortunes " as after having yourself immersed in Tao. It would be roughly 700 years later that those concepts gradually came into the Chinese lives..

Taoism is always hesitant to talk ; she is forced to talk because of the times .

Although people in old times did get biased views against women, the term " impure" should not be viewed so negative as people think if we see it in a yin-yang way : pure born from impure, creation from chaos , or establishment from destruction...

Hi Songtsan, thanks a lot.

Hi Taomeow, Glad to talk with you again . Your proposal sounds interesting , maybe I will come across someone that I can cooperate with, try my best ... Exst

The best writings about swordsmanship ever written is called " 渾元劍經" , roughly can be translated as " Jing ( 'classics') of Primordial Swordsmanship" , which in fact is the main writings of a Taoist lineage called Sword Immortals ( "劍仙" ) school . The Sword Immortals are group of people who are famous for, or partially accused of , their capability of projecting sword-like qi , long distance away , to fight with others or to interfere with earthly matters ... The book's author is Bi Kun , a guy who lived in the Ming Dynasty . Not a lengthy work to translate, it is my lack of experience in swordsmanship that blocks me from introducing you guys such an important and magnificent work in Taoism .

At first look, this one , written by 580 A.D. seems to be a Buddhist sutra ; however, judging from its asking for physical achievements as proofs for how empty , how consolidated our mind can attain , it is a Taoist piece of writing without doubts . A consolidated Mind is always crucial for Taoist practice, and the key , in fact, can always be summarized in one sentence : " (whether) you are capable of consolidating your Mind and opening that gateway towards the pre-heavenly qi " ( "凝神得竅"). Pre-heavenly qi can be viewed as some kind of negative entropy, the only fundamental energy that can utimately eliminate those ever emerging , ever increasing chaotic factors in our bodies ,provided that we can maintain that deep ,persistant consolidated Mind in our daily life. 天尊告左玄真人曰： 夫欲修道，先能捨事，外事都絕，無與忤心，然後安坐，內觀心起。若覺一念起，須除滅，務令安靜。其次，雖非的有貪著，浮遊亂想，亦盡滅除。晝夜勤行，須臾不替。唯滅動心，不滅照心；但凝空心，不凝住心，不依一法而心常住。然則凡心躁競。其次，初學息心甚難，或息不得，蹔停還失。去留交戰，百體流行。久久精思，方乃調熟。勿以蹔收不得，遂廢千生之業。少得靜已，則於行立坐卧之時，涉事之處，諠鬧之所，皆作意安；有事無事，常若無心；處靜處諠，其志惟一。 若束心太急，又則成病，氣發狂顛，是其候也。心若不動，又須放任，寬急得所。自恒調適，制而不著，放而不動，處喧無惡，涉事無惱者，此是真定。不以涉事無惱，故求多事；不以處喧無惡，強來就諠。以無事為真宅，有事為應跡。若水鏡之為鑒，則隨物而現形。善巧方便，唯能入定。慧發遲速，則不由人。勿令定中急急求慧，急則傷性，傷則無慧。若定不求慧而慧自生，此名真慧。慧而不用，實智若愚。益資定慧，雙美無極。 若定中念想，多感眾邪，妖精百魅，隨心應見。所見天尊、諸仙、真人，是其祥也。唯令定心之上，豁然無覆；定心之下，曠然無基。舊業日銷，新業不造。無所罣礙，迥脫塵籠。行而久之，自然得道。 夫得道之人，凡有七候；一者，心得定易，覺諸塵漏；二者，宿疾普銷，身心輕爽；三者，填補夭損，還年復命；四者，延數萬歲，名曰仙人；五者，鍊形為氣，名曰真人；六者，鍊氣成神，名曰神人；七者，鍊神合道，名曰至人。 其於鑒力，隨候益明。得至道成，慧乃圓備。若乃久學定心，身無一候，促齡穢質，色謝方空。自云慧覺，又稱成道者，求道之理，實所未然。 The heavenly God said: In order to cultivate Tao, you first have to turn your back to all daily matters and those earthly connections . Before you sit down to meditate, let nothing attach to your mind. When observing your mind and tracing their fluctuations , you need to get rid of all of them so that a calm and condensed state can be maintained . In fact , not only attachments, but any tiny ideas or fluctuations should be eliminated . Do it in every moment of life without interruptions. Remove the shifted minds, but not that Mind of consolidation ; consolidate the emptied Mind, without having any kinds of attachment , even to emptiness ; Place your mind to nowhere, no time and no forms, yet without losing that state of persistent Emptiness. For new practitioners , they are too eager to proceed , which conversely prevent them from success. They are either not knowing how to settle their minds, or not knowing the steps of it , a mind entangled in such predicament can only fail them; It is only after having practiced it repeatedly for a long time can they harness their mind ; don't give up at such stage ,otherwise you will lose the chance of living forever. Wherever you go, whatever time you are in, let yourself have a consolidated Mind; whether you are dealing with a matter or free of any matters, keep that mind emptied. Stick to that spiritual Oneness despite what circumstance you are situated. However, you shouldn't harness your mind too strictly for it will make you mentally sick , even insane ; a dull , stuffed mind always needs some relaxing . You need to tune that degree of freedom for yourself. Harness it but not let it stuck , release it but not allow it to shift away . It is after you can stay calm and clear even in a very noisy circumstance , get entangled by troubles yet without being annoyed , can you claim a genuine consolidated Mind be attained. There is no need to chase after troubles even if your mind is now worry-proof; there is no need to chase after quarrels even if you are now noise-proof. Let the worry-proof Mind as the core of your mind , and let problems-solving as its applications . A mind like a pool of water , unaffected by any reflections on it , is a mind having a quality that enables you to get Consolidated Observation easily. However, whether a great Wisdom can arise from it is always beyond our control , too eager to get it might undermine our Spiritual Nature, which conversely obstructs its emergence . In fact , Genuine Wisdom is something abruptly popped up when you are not deliberately chasing for it . Having enlightened but not applying that Wisdom , being exceptionally smart but showing people foolishness is the Taoist ( positive feedback) way of helping you in further enhancing your ability. In consolidated observation , you may come across many spirits ,which likely are attracted by you or are affected by different states of your minds ; if you experience some gods, although not necessarily things negative , don't attach to them as there is no need to further add any likes or dislikes , pros or cons to it . And, it is in such a process that you shake off your old karma, yet add no new ones to your life ; you are therefore no longer entangled by those earthly troubles . Practice it persistently, in the end you will attain the real Tao. There are 7 proofs to verify how well you have practiced it , say if : 1)You now attain a calm and consolidated mind with no effort . Or, you see through those karma , things look fortunate yet illusory , easily . 2) All your diseases suddenly disappear, you feel nimble and pleasant. 3)Wrinkles on your face receded , and your marrow refilled. You find yourself much younger. 4)Your can live ten thousands of years, and people call you the Immortals; 5) Your body changed into qi , you now become a Genuine Person . 6) You further refine your qi into pure Shen ,and you are now the Person of Shen ; 7)Finally, by merging all your Shen into Tao, you become the Upmost Person. During this process , your power of observation should grow stronger and stronger, brighter and brighter; in fact, attaining Tao means making your Wisdom full and perfect. On the other hand , if people whose practice show none of the mentioned proofs, and they still wear withered faces and have deteriorated bodies, then no matter how hard they claim themselves intelligent , no matter how great they boast of their achievement of Tao , nothing is really true.

"Jing of embryonic breathing" (胎息經) , one of the important Taoist writings which elaborates the principles of embryonic breathing , is written by an anonymous Taoist sometime before 450 A.D. In recent centuries, people started to talk about the Microcosmic circulation, but seldom are they told that capable of initializing embryonic breathing is the precondition for doing the MCC. Maybe you can skip the MCC, doing it or not really depends on what way / school you follow, but hardly can you skip the stage of embryonic breathing. So, its importance is clear , no need to emphasize. 高上玉皇曰: 胎從伏氣中結，氣從有胎中息。氣入身來謂之生，神去離形謂之死。知神氣，可以長生。故守虛無，以養神氣。神行即氣行，神住即氣住。若欲長生，神氣相注。心不動念，無來無去，不出不入，自然常在。勤而行之，是真道路。 The Heavenly Jade God said : " After having the pre-heavenly qi brought under control , a spiritual fetus starts to form somewhere at our abdomen, and , we start to breathe in an embryonic way where pre-heavenly qi resides. What is called life is when qi enters our body, what is called death is when shen detaches from it . If you knows Shen and qi well , you can live endlessly. Stick to Emptiness , and consolidate it so as to nourish Shen and qi. When Shen moves , qi moves; when Shen resides , qi also resides. In order to live forever, let Shen and qi have intercourse , and hold each other. Let no minds arise . No mind comes, no mind goes; no mind enters, no mind leaves . In that case, Shen and qi naturally coexist with each other . Practice this diligently and you will find it a real way towards eternal life ."