exorcist_1699

Whether your qigong cultivation or other spiritual cultivation : sitting there pay attention to dantian , maintaining some postures or movements, or just chanting some words ..etc good or not really depends on the following principle , not how long a time you have practiced it : That qi and jing we gain and accumulate every day from it should be more than the quantity of qi and jing we lose ; notice that sitting still , moving ,chanting , focusing , all make us lose some energy ( jing and qi , concretely speaking ) , and as most qigong claim anti-aging , even reversing it , so they should be able to fight against it and materialize it quick . A cultivation , within a period of time , likely not too long say within one week , should make our body feel more energetic , our mind sharper , our emotions more placid ...; anything unable to give us these effects, we have to look into it again , and maybe abandon it ..

Thank you for raising this . I do doubt that although Zen originates from India, quite a big chunk of its essence already lost in modern India .

Many posts by members of this forum claim sufferings from headache , hypertension or uncontrolled flow of qi is mainly due to their eagerness to gather more qi at the upper dantian, thinking that it is the way of nourishing the third- eye , which unfortunately not correct . In fact, the way of nourishing the upper dantian is quite different from the way of nourishing the lower dantian ; it is not an issue of mental focus , more strength that you put on it , nor is it any kind of visualizations . Qi, once having risen and reached the head, will appear in some other forms ; some describe it as "water' , some may emphasize 'light ' , so if people still attach to those feelings of qi they experienced before may not be that precise ..

This is okay if you use it just as a way of constraining your fluctuating minds ( ' use one idea to take the place of thousands of other ideas' (' 一念代萬念 ' ) ); in that case , whatever name you chant it in : Buddha/Jesus Christ / Allah..., is no difference . However whether this can mobilize qi or allow you to consolidate into a mindless Mind is hardly to tell , in most cases, I would say : 'not likely ' . In fact, hardly can such type of Pure Land way help you mobilize energy ( jing and qi ) unless you can do it " skillfully" ; that means, you have to go down into emptiness deep enough , at a depth capable of ' echoing ' the background , ubiquitous Buddha Heart/ Cosmic Heart ( '天心') . Also notice that sitting there straight for hours chanting whatever thing does make you lose a lot of the body's energy . What you lose can be more than what you gain .

Conventional path is that at the lower dantian people cultivate jing and qi , then after accomplish it , as qi having risen up and changed , people then start cultivating shen ( some kind of delicate mindless Mind or 3rd eye ) at the upper dantian ; however , in some special cases, people can start straightforward to pay attention to their upper dantian ,skipping the lower dantian cultivation stage , and cultivate their shen without seemingly worry about jing and qi ; in fact, Taoists view Zen-type of cultivation that kind of an attempt of jump , despite most people fail .

In China , there are also lot of stories about fox , fish ( mainly carp) and snake ,even spider practicing their cultivation and become immortals or monsters . Anyway, assume that they once attain self consciousness ( test of it seems to be putting a mirror in front , and see their reaction ) , and can pay attention to their bodies' conditions and energy , then as reptiles , fish , invertebrates..etc that get different body forms , we have to ask : 1) Where are the locations of their dantians, just at the center area of their bodies or somewhere in between their kidneys? 2) Do they get the same Du and Ren channels as humans' or in what other forms they run ? Hardly will an octopus get its DU and REN channels same as us , I think. Although acupuncture treatment does apply to dog, cat , horse .., acupuncturists who one day suddenly think of how to cure animals which come from other categories say parrots , dolphin , even snail ,will find the issue of how to inject Taoist qi theory into modern Zoology something difficult .

Yes, can do without teacher at your side but notice that : 1) For qi cultivation : once it is initialized , you should not deliberately lead it as qi gets its own channels , its own direction and time to flow . 2) For mindless cultivation : it is same as you learn computer programming , it must be done and learnt by yourself, hardly can your teacher do it for you except providing some guidelines. No enforcement and do it naturally is the point . Taoist mindlessness mainly uses jing and qi to 'empty' it , rather than mind's own negation ( In fact, a mind cannot empty itself ..)

Taoist dantian is around 2 inches below the navel, an area deep inside rather than a surface point . Choosing that area is because it is the easiest place from where people can initialize their qi ( for men ; for women should be the area in between their breasts) . Different from other Buddhism inclined ways, Taoist way makes use of qi and jing (women's can be varied as they get period, conception, lactation.. ) to build up people's spiritual growth .A persistent mindless status is always crucial to any spiritual growth , which people not only have to grow it , but also have to maintain it ; the older people get , the more they will understand this ; so building a secure foundation with enough high-quality jing and qi is always important .

"火" ("Fire") is a unique term used quite differently in TCM and in Taoist alchemy . In TCM , in most cases, it is a negative term refers to some kind of abnormal fever or symptoms ( dry mouth, sore, mental unrest..) caused by our unhealthy life style ( drinking too much alcohol , eating too much spicy food, addiction to sex..) or external 'evil' factors ( wind, dampness, coolness ..) ; however, in Taoist alchemy , it is a term always used positively , referring to some kind of spiritual status , a seemingly separate mindless Mind , which many people mistake it as just a peaceful mindfulness or a focus on the dantian . In fact, only after our having attained that ability of ' consolidating' a mindless Mind, always called ' spiritual fire ' ('神火') , can there be a genuine Micro Cosmic Circulation ; notice that ordinary qi is always circulating on the Ren and Du channels without our intervention ; it is not that meaningful if we further add our ordinary mind and circulate it again ..

I seldom agree with Awaken because she behaves a little strangely on this forum , yet here I have to say that I agree with hers . What she roughly says here is that no matter you hold your mind to empty it , to sing the name of Buddha , to pay attention to dantien... you attach your mind to somewhere , in some way...and these are all wrong . These all belong to some kind of " grinding-a-brick-to-make-it-as-a-mirror " mistake . Or to put it in a more straight way , it simply that you can't empty your mind by your own mind for as long as you hold or raise an attention to do so, you are adding something , not emptying something , to it ..

No-way is the way* , no-mind is the Mind required ; others further added to it are all wrong , making it tedious and astray . No-mind is an intuitive effort after people's having detached themselves from their senses, their minds , emotions and expectations at one stroke , then it pop-ups suddenly . In order to grasp it , reading Zen's original texts in classical Chinese is nearly a must , or at least a short-cut, despite such saying makes many people here , on this forum , unhappy . Just like what you are told in the movie " Arrival " , in order to know what meanings the aliens want to transmit , you start from reading their strange circular symbols ( characters ? ) . *法本法無法, 無法法亦法

We succumb to those senses , emotions and imaginations of ourselves that the world gives us. Although some look subjective , some look objective , their limitations on us are insurmountable ; which is sadly contrary to what most of us think that we , with some kinds of efforts, can someday be in charge of our fates . Can a 2-dimensional creature escape from its 2-D world by jumping overhead into an extra dimension and becomes free ? If it can , the world once blocked its movement and intelligence , once limited what it could see, what it could dream of ..now becomes free of limitations just because of attaining that extra freedom ; and , even its clock now ticks differently . What we need is an extra dimension to leave . This is why a Zen patriarch secretly whispers in his great works * , which seldom noticed by readers , that " Detachment is what the way should be " (" 離即是法" ) and Taoist alchemy always emphasizes the "pre-heavenly qi " ( "先天氣") , stuff from another dimension via the Magic Gateway . * ‹‹ 傳心法要 ›› Other sayings like " 離一切諸相, 即是諸佛 " , "一根既返本, 六根成解脫 " ,all talk about the same thing.

You are talking about the earthly appearance of a religion , the face of it : whether it collects a lot of money , whether its ceremonies splendid enough, whether it gathers a lot of people on the internet ..etc . I refer to the core (' 裡子' ) of a religion that really grants people the heavenly blessings (' 天爵' ) : forever life, no matter it is physical or spiritual ; disease and aging-proof body ..etc . We really have to ask people whether they want to have those earthly privileges ('人爵') or they , at least a small portion of them , at the very bottom of their hearts, really want to attain the heavenly blessings..

What left behind are the challenges from modern science and Christianity , which I will later talk about them .

Taoism is an indigenous religion , in order to maintain its position , it has to face the challenge from the incoming Buddhism which , in fact , gets many elements close to Taoism . It is foolish to ignore Buddhism or criticize simply its theory , the best strategy is to assimilate the useful elements from Buddhism , especially the no-mind stuffs which are really useful for Taoist cultivation . Notice that both Zhuangzi talks about sit-and-forget( ' 坐忘 ' ) and Laotze talks about the emptied mind (" 谷神 "), so such a way is not without ground . Note also that no matter how many Buddhist sayings of emptied mind stuff adopted in Taoism , as long as they are used under Taoist jing-qi-shen framework, then it is okay . In addition , Taoist theory about the necessity of cultivating both Xing (our spiritual nature ) and Meng ( life composed of qi and jing) and its specific standpoint against cultivating the yin-typed differentiated mind (' 陰識 ') already tell people clearly how big a difference it is from Buddhist . In fact , old , jing-drained Buddhist practitioners , no mater they follow Pure Land or Zen's , are very likely succumb to mentioned entanglement without noticing it . Anyway , hardly can we see Taoism overwhelmed by Buddhism .

Just an attempt to assimilate the Christmas practice into Taoist jing-qi-Shen framework ..

All religions have two concerns, one is about individuals' relation with other people , one is about individuals' relation with the cosmos . However, besides in nighttime when we look up the sky decorated with countless stars and wonder what the cosmos is , in most of the daytime , we succumb to the relations with people , that means , it is the social aspect of religion that always dominates , which also bewilders us ,making us forget its other , more fundamental aspect. Meditation ,a common element we can find in nearly all religions, in which people of different religions can talk directly to their God/gods , not via other symbols , ceremonies or norms . Although the steps and skills of meditations are varied ( praying is one of them ) , there is some least common way among them that we can grasp , dilute and summarize as what I mentioned in the previous post .

I do think that the Christian God , the Buddhist Buddha Heart and the Taoist Tao are talking about the same thing despite of their seemingly big differences, for example there is no Father-like Creator figure in Taoism and Buddhism , and Christian praying is quite different from Zen's no-Mind cultivation ..etc due their geographical and historical reasons. These differences bewilder many people and trap them in endless, useless arguments . No need to go into details of them here , a possible way to solve it is to combine them , say in fact , people can , by singing the name of Jesus Christ repeatedly , lead themselves into a mindless state . Through it, enables their capabilities of initializing qi from the lower dantian .. ; as qi arises and purifies , the mindless state turns into to a more secure No-mind state, and qi further expands to the outside world , which then gives rise to many religious feelings : feeling of oneself united with the whole cosmos , feeling of linking with all humans , even all lives , and the pity towards them ..etc

Zen's is the most likely way in Buddhist cultivation to attain the Buddha Mind , others are unlikely . Taoist ways mainly rely on accumulation of qi and jing , good quality of them that you can retain makes attainment of an emptied mind much easier . So it does not depend so heavily on the mind's own effort as the Buddhist way does . In this sense , Zen's criticism on Taoist attachment to qi is only partly true .

In fact ,raise any idea or intention to initialize qi , to empty the mind, to visualize something or to expect something great , whatever and however it is that most meditations try to do , are not okay ; they all are opposite to Zen's requirement of nourishing a " no-Mind from nowhere " , and unable to do that means all those efforts in varied meditations will definitely fall to attachments to forms, steps, statuses , expectations that block people from attaining the Buddha Mind ( Taoism calls it "Cosmic Heart " ('天心') ) . In order to overcome such difficulty , Zen provides many methods, here I only introduce two : ( see picture below , showing a series of ideas ) At : A) Chop your idea of raising qi, emptying the mine ..etc right at the initial stage that the idea not fully formed.. Examples : When an apostle tried to leave the room , the sifu called him back and asked what it is ; Sifu passed a candle to the apostle , when he tried to receive it , the sifu extinguished the fire..etc or B). Situate your mind in between two ideas ( one already disappeared, but the new one not yet arisen ) , place of nowhere, and ' sustain ' it .

Deliberate stuffs look convenient , but soon or later these stepping stones become attachments and traps that entangle people . How long ? It can entangle them for whole life .

This is a typical example of wrong way , mainly due to not understanding well the Taoist "natural " principle or Zen's no-mind . How can people add so many deliberate stuff ( ' 造作' ) , but still claim capable of harmonizing the minds and the status of the body ? The principle should be to consolidate a no-mind at the background first , then if it is deep and persistent enough , it can harmonize or control all those elements , whatever fluctuating minds , breathing , heart beat ..etc they are at the front stage . Just like a well woven spider web , although looks invisible , can catch all things stuck to it even in strong wind unaffected , not breaking apart ; as the Sixth Patriarch once said : " 惠能無技倆 , 不斷百思量 "

I do think tapping the meridians is some kind of starting point to learn TCM and acupuncture . For example , tapping the gallbladder meridian , one of the most common ways of learning or testing the effectiveness of the meridian therapy , is good for your health and your identification of the rough location of the meridian . The shortcomings of it are the way just too rough , and it does not help you identify and locate those acupuncture points , let alone the intricate relations between them and the meridians. In fact, the mechanism of qi in our bodies can be discovered, then manipulated when : 1) we get sick , which could be due to the imbalance or deficiency of qi ; and from these qi's distorted forms we learn about what qi can be and try to cure its varied expressions (symptoms ) ; it can be viewed as some kind of way negative for we learn qi from its abnormal forms and its negative effects on us . 2) we can initialize qi ourselves to study its character and expressions , say , we pay attention to the inner depth of our forehead then get some feeling of qi at the abdomen..; and by shifting such attention , now become a consolidated no-mind , we try healing some troubles in our bodies ; in that sense , it can be said as a positive way . Also by acupressing points which give us feelings of pain along the meridians , we can find a shortcut to learn about qi and TCM that many people overlook . For example , if you get digestion problem , then likely at Sanyinjiao (' 三陰交' ; SP6 ) , you will get some significant pain . On the other hand , if you feel pain at the Qimen ('期門' ; LR14) acupuncture point of the Liver meridian , then very likely you are having some potential disease related to the liver which even you have not noticed it ..etc . Playing with them in your daily life let you take less medicine, save more money , and explore the world of qi easier .

Since jing , it gets both invisible and visible forms ( semen) , is the basic life force , people can manipulate it only if they can change its form to qi, or even to shen , at their own will . If only for health consideration , then the less frequent a release of jing ( having sex with a woman is only one of the ways) , the better it is . It also depends on what age the guy is , for example , in his 50s , once fortnightly ; in his 60s, once a month..etc. Both Taoist and Buddhist teachings emphasize the importance of no leakage of jing . The Taoist ideas , especially those of the Wu-Liu school, are explicit and clear. It says that jing is not only related to health , but to both physical and spiritual immortality . As a Toaist patriarch said : " After having told about the key ( of forever keeping jing ) , I am assured of the immortality of this body " ('得訣歸來, 則知此身可以不死' ) Why so sure ? Simply because a long-term accumulation , say a duration of 3 months , of jing is a thing extremely difficult ; without sifu's key , hardly can people themselves get the way out . And , only a period of 3- 4 months retain of jing can give people a strong feeling of being very energetic , even some self-healing ability..etc

Spiritual balancing is as important as physical balancing . No-mind balancing skill is the key .