Is the MCO Real? (Split from Benebell Wen on the Microcosmic Orbit)

[zerostao]

On 10/15/2025 at 4:15 PM, Gerard said:

To answer that and what you wrote below:

 

You do what I do and MCO not only becomes dust in the wind but the last of your concerns.

 

As I always state in these matters:

 

Find out for yourself.

 

I like the way you state it.

At first I thought it read lost rather than dust; I feel the essence of your meaning is the same either way, yes?

 

I definitely agree 100 with what you bolded 

 

Although, I don't mind being out in the wind myself,

 

[steve]

Ok

[zerostao]

I do think some scientists of the deeper thinker category, or any that are open minded beyond pure materialism, are fascinated with these concepts, subjects, that we all discuss here in TDB 

 

I think objectifying some of this has been elusive/challenging 

 

Do I think mco micro & macro are real?

Of course I do 

I also agree with Gerard about all of this is going on naturally anyways. 

I think being too rigid in one's opinions holds folks back 

The Pathways energy travels through a xingyi player are not exactly the same as the taiji player experiences 

 

I am open to views that differ with mine. 

 

If anyone who has experience with both taiji and xingyi agree or disagree with what I said about energy pathways. I'd like to hear feedback

Edited 20 hours ago by zerostao

[zerostao]

@ChiDragon

Over the years here, I have always appreciated your commentary and the topics you've selected to discuss here. 

You've led me to look at things differently.

 

I don't think any of us have it all worked out yet, but, over the years here combined with practice has yielded some real nuggets along the way 

I expect that to continue on for a good while longer 

[Forestgreen]

20 hours ago, Apech said:

Not really it’s just that ‘science’ doesn’t allow for anything other than the gross physical and is therefore limited.

We will always have quantum physics ( and breakfast at Tiffanys).

The idea of essentialism though has been questioned both by philosophers, scientists, and buddhists. 

 

Are there subtle realities?

I would say yes.

Are they based on essences/substances?

According to abhidhamma theory, as far as I  understand it, no.

Edited 16 hours ago by Forestgreen
Added stuff.

[Apech]

2 hours ago, Forestgreen said:

We will always have quantum physics ( and breakfast at Tiffanys).

The idea of essentialism though has been questioned both by philosophers, scientists, and buddhists. 

 

Are there subtle realities?

I would say yes.

Are they based on essences/substances?

According to abhidhamma theory, as far as I  understand it, no.

Buddhism is a bit unusual as it doesn’t really have an ontology.  In most other systems there are subtle substances , for instance citta in Samkhya and yoga philosophy.

 

All three of the three treasures are subtle substances, jing being the most condensed form of qi above the physical.  
 

 

[Bindi]

3 hours ago, Apech said:

Buddhism is a bit unusual as it doesn’t really have an ontology.  In most other systems there are subtle substances , for instance citta in Samkhya and yoga philosophy.

 

All three of the three treasures are subtle substances, jing being the most condensed form of qi above the physical.  
 

 

What if the Buddha just got it wrong? What if the ontological systems were closer to the mark?

[Apech]

50 minutes ago, Bindi said:

What if the Buddha just got it wrong? What if the ontological systems were closer to the mark?

Yes what if?

 

Prana and citta come back into the frame with Tantra.  So … what are we to make of this?

[Sahaja]

I think Buddha did have an ontology in his views that was based on dependent origin and the ideas that grew out of that (no self, impermanence, the skandas). His view on dependent origin can be viewed as a middle ontological ground between the eternalists (eternal self or soul)  and anhilationists (everything ends at death).  Above all though I think he wanted to be practical and provide useful practical ideas to help people more than create a new rigidly defined philosophy.  In this regard I think his view of modern science would be to accommodate from it that which was useful to people while warning of its behavioral traps. 

 

While there was a clear emphasis on cultivation of the mind while viewing the body as secondary in importance and somewhat problematic,  I find it quite interesting that hidden in Buddha’s iconography (mudras used, sitting next to a tree, etc) one finds a number of very powerful energetic practices that directly affect the body’s qi, Jing, Dan tian, channels and various circulations.  These are so specific and have such specific subtle body effects integral to its cultivation  that it seems quite possible that someone along the Buddhist line didn’t have a problem with using these subtle substances to support their sadhana regardless of their materiality or lack thereof or the names used to describe them. Perhaps they just found them useful .

[Apech]

18 minutes ago, Sahaja said:

I think Buddha did have an ontology in his views that was based on dependent origin and the ideas that grew out of that (no self, impermanence, the skandas). His view on dependent origin can be viewed as a middle ontological ground between the eternalists (eternal self or soul)  and anhilationists (everything ends at death).  Above all though I think he wanted to be practical and provide useful practical ideas to help people more than create a new rigidly defined philosophy.  In this regard I think his view of modern science would be to accommodate from it that which was useful to people while warning of its behavioral traps. 

 

While there was a clear emphasis on cultivation of the mind while viewing the body as secondary in importance and somewhat problematic,  I find it quite interesting that hidden in Buddha’s iconography (mudras used, sitting next to a tree, etc) one finds a number of very powerful energetic practices that directly affect the body’s qi, Jing, Dan tian, channels and various circulations.  These are so specific and have such specific subtle body effects integral to its cultivation  that it seems quite possible that someone along the Buddhist line didn’t have a problem with using these subtle substances to support their sadhana regardless of their materiality or lack thereof or the names used to describe them. Perhaps they just found them useful .

But dependent origination is predicated on ignorance -not seeing things they really are precipitates the 12 point chain leading to birth , death and suffering.  It is not really a statement about being as such.

 

While Samkhya and related schools do ask the question what is the nature of being and come up with a solution.

 

[Apech]

13 hours ago, steve said:

Ok

ok? Just ok?

 

is that a no ok or a yes ok?

 

or an ok ok?

 

or a perhaps ok?

 

 

 

 

[Sahaja]

17 minutes ago, Apech said:

But dependent origination is predicated on ignorance -not seeing things they really are precipitates the 12 point chain leading to birth , death and suffering.  It is not really a statement about being as such.

 

While Samkhya and related schools do ask the question what is the nature of being and come up with a solution.

 

“all phenomena, including ourselves, exist and arise in dependence upon other factors rather than in isolation”

perhaps it’s based on ignorance, but I think it still describes a definition of  being pretty well though not a fixed one 
I agree samkhya is more fixed in its definitions (dualistic and based on enumeration/counting.), but isn’t our mixing of purusa and prakriti to define our being a form of ignorance that samkhya seeks to solve? Granted being just a purusa may be somewhat more defined than being in nirvana but not by much. 

saiva tantra while using the tattva system like samkhya adds a creative deity to the mix and potential for nondual experience combining both purusa and Prakriti , like Buddhism it views our human perspective on being as based in ignorance because our true nature as siva is hidden. Realization of who we really are (siva) is it’s counterpart to Buddhist enlightenment. So seems quite similar. 

I have a feeling that many religious philosophies are based on our view of being as flawed in some way and their mission is to correct it. It’s also likely their definition of what true being in the emancipated state is somewhat vague for lack of concepts to describe it. If you realize your siva nature, among other things, space and time no longer apply - a bit hard to describe that. 

 

[Apech]

ok

 

[Taomeow]

Does wifi exist?

Is it a substance?

Is your phone born with its Uber app?  With its Instagram app?  How about Amazon?  

Is your credit card stuffed with paper dollars and coins, which are substances?  How do you fit them in there?  

Do your hundred dollar bills physically lose weight when there's inflation in the country?

Does your bank account gain weight when you make a deposit?  

Does it lose weight when you make a payment?

How about energy?  What energy exactly does it gain or lose?

And so on.

 

The world does not just consist of substances and energies.  The world is also choke full of changes.  Changes can be meaningful or meaningless.  Qi is the medium and message of meaningful change.  The signifier of meaningful change is a pattern.  

 

MCO is not a substance and not "energy."  (Oh the pop use of the term by folks who don't understand Newtonian mechanics, let alone quantum mechanics!)  MCO is a pattern of movement of qi.  A bit like an app.  Sometimes it installs itself after you push the right button.  Sometimes people push wrong buttons and it doesn't.  But once it's there you know it's there.  Just like Uber.  You can get a ride if you have pushed the right button to install the Uber app.

 

Does Uber exist?  Do you carry a little inflatable car in your phone for it to exist?  A hundred thousand little cars?  ??? 

And yet you can get a ride if you have the app.

 

Also sprach Taomeow.    

[Apech]

Gosh

[Taomeow]

[liminal_luke]

Lindy Ferringo, an old shiatsu teacher of mine, once said that she no longer thought chi "traveled" through the meridians.  Which isn´t to say  that she didn´t believe in chi or the meridian channels because she did.  I was intrigued by the statement and wish that I´d asked her more.  Maybe the MCO exists but the idea of some sort of esoteric substance traveling through it is a misunderstanding.

[Apech]

2 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

Lindy Ferringo, an old shiatsu teacher of mine, once said that she no longer thought chi "traveled" through the meridians.  Which isn´t to say  that she didn´t believe in chi or the meridian channels because she did.  I was intrigued by the statement and wish that I´d asked her more.  Maybe the MCO exists but the idea of some sort of esoteric substance traveling through it is a misunderstanding.

Not you too, traitor!

[Apech]

So many hostages to modernism on this thread.

 

 

[Taomeow]

38 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

Lindy Ferringo, an old shiatsu teacher of mine, once said that she no longer thought chi "traveled" through the meridians.  Which isn´t to say  that she didn´t believe in chi or the meridian channels because she did.  I was intrigued by the statement and wish that I´d asked her more.  Maybe the MCO exists but the idea of some sort of esoteric substance traveling through it is a misunderstanding.

 

When I asserted -- as I have for the past 25+ years -- that qi is the medium and message of meaningful change, I didn't say it lightly.  A somewhat (but not quite) similar dual understanding which some phenomena merit causes physicists to refer to elementary particles as both particles and waves.  It's not something an everyday mind steeped in "either/or" dualities of observable macro phenomena wraps itself around with ease.  Could it be that your shiatsu teacher may have focused on the "message" part of what qi "is and does" but either overlooked or decided to ignore the "medium" part.  Qi is both, and it is neither by itself.  It's a medium/message of change, simultaneously.  A bit like coffee from that old maxim: when you boil an egg in water it gets hard, when you boil a carrot in water it gets soft, but when you boil ground coffee in water it changes the water.  Qi changes the medium it operates in while changing itself.  Qi does travel though meridians not unlike that -- except it doesn't have to be a substance in order to both undergo and engender change...  it's the pattern that travels -- and substances encountered on the way align (or resist aligning) with the pattern. 

 

Patterns underlie both matter and energy. 

 

Also sprach The Ta Chuan aka The Great Treatise on the Changes.        

  

[Taomeow]

18 minutes ago, Apech said:

So many hostages to modernism on this thread.

 

 

 

As for me, I'm not a hostage to modernism (did you mean modernity?  'cause modernism I don't have any use for, except maybe Cézanne but he was not quite that yet, just the transitional phase from art to all that nonsense).  Rather, I'm trying to be an interpreter/translator when I resort to modern analogies.  The reason for this is, I try to talk to real hostages-to-modernity in the parlance I hope/believe they know well.  I know other languages too but those are not exactly widespread here, so I mostly keep them to myself, except for an occasional song of my people --

meow...  meow...  meowwwwwwwww....   

Edited 24 minutes ago by Taomeow

[liminal_luke]

21 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

 Could it be that your shiatsu teacher may have focused on the "message" part of what qi "is and does" but either overlooked or decided to ignore the "medium" part.        

  

 

I´m not sure what her understanding was.  She changed her own style of practice from Zen Shiatsu to Pauline Sasaki´s Quantum Shiatsu so that may have something to do with her evolving view.  (As an aside, I´m generally not a fan of spiritual and wellness modalities that call themselves "quantum" this and "quantum" that though, who knows, perhaps the term makes sense in this context.) 

 

Clearly, this is a complicated subject and I don´t think popular views do it justice. I asked Gemini how the conception of chi differs between practitioners of Zen Shiatsu and Quantum Shiatsu and got this interesting answer...

 

 

The primary difference in the view of Chi (or Ki in Japanese) between Zen Shiatsu and Quantum Shiatsu is one of dimension and focus:

 

1. Zen Shiatsu's View of Chi (Ki)

 

Zen Shiatsu, pioneered by Shizuto Masunaga, views Chi primarily through the lens of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) principles, emphasizing its flow through the meridian system and its manifestation in the physical and psychological body.

 

 

• Dimensionality: Focuses on the Chi that flows through the 12 main meridians as pathways that connect to the organ systems and emotional/mental states.

   

   

• Quality and Balance: Chi is diagnosed in terms of Kyo (deficiency/empty) and Jitsu (excess/fullness) along these meridian lines, particularly through palpation of the hara (abdomen).

   

   

• Treatment Goal: The aim is to harmonize and balance the flow of Chi by tonifying Kyo (deficient) areas and sedating Jitsu (excessive) areas along the meridians to restore the body's natural energetic balance.

   

   

---

 

2. Quantum Shiatsu's View of Chi (Ki)

 

Quantum Shiatsu, developed by Pauline Sasaki, expands the concept of Chi by incorporating ideas from Quantum Physics and the understanding of a multi-dimensional energetic body.

 

 

• Dimensionality: Views Chi not just as flowing through meridians in the physical body, but as multi-dimensional, holographic energetic fields that extend beyond the physical form, including the "Light Body."

   

   

• Quality and Coherence: Focuses on the activation of anti-pathogenic Ki (healthy Chi), emphasizing the body's inherent health and ability to heal, rather than solely focusing on eliminating pathological or problematic Chi.

   

   

• Treatment Goal: The goal is to achieve "Quantum Coherence"—a process of unifying the energy within the physical body with the surrounding expansive energy field. The treatment aims to access and amplify this higher, vital energy and foster the dominance of the Light Body, often using faster and lighter touch to access these non-physical dimensions. This approach may also simplify the meridian system into a "One Meridian system," reflecting the interconnectedness of all energetic flows.

Edited 21 minutes ago by liminal_luke