The golden flower and the Christ

[Haribol]

Came across this wonderful Substack. I’ll quote the intro, and link the article below, in case it caught your interest

 

 

Quote

 

At the end of psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower, we encounter several key ideas for our personal transformation and also for the transformation of our history. Carl Jung speaks of how we Westerners can make use of and integrate the best of Eastern spiritual wisdom, transforming ourselves psychologically and possibly also the history of humanity.

Let us pay special attention. Jung says:

“In the Pauline symbol of Christ, the highest religious experience of West and East touch each other. Christ, the hero laden with suffering, and the Golden Flower, which opens in the purple hall of the jade city: what an opposition, what an unimaginable difference, what a historical abyss! A problem suited to be the masterpiece of a psychologist of the future.”

 

https://jungianalchemist.substack.com/p/how-the-golden-flower-and-christ?r=5biq0e&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay&triedRedirect=true

[Wordless]

I think the comparison the article makes would have worked better in a Buddhist context where the focus is predominantly on the mind. Daoist cultivation also has a big focus on Ming (body/vitality) which makes the comparison kind of weak, even if the end result is comparable, the path to get there is extremely different. Comparing end results rather than actual practice seems unwise.

 

I think the real take away from the article from an average Christians POV is Buddhist meditations may help their mind reach closer proximity to that of Christ. Which again seems to ignore something rather major..... Christian mysticism exists and already includes meditative and contemplative practices...

 

Which makes it seem the author just found 2 comparable end results and wanted to find unifying practices, lacking the understanding of really either tradition. The conclusion of the article again highlights the comparability of the 2 end results, while instead it's real conclusion should just have been something along the lines of "Christians could probably benefit from developing a daily meditative practice".

 

Anyway, thanks for the share @Haribol, it at least gave a slight insight into Jungian thought. 

[Mark Foote]

On 12/20/2025 at 5:06 AM, Haribol said:

 

"In the Pauline symbol of Christ, the highest religious experience of West and East touch each other. Christ, the hero laden with suffering, and the Golden Flower, which opens in the purple hall of the jade city: what an opposition, what an unimaginable difference, what a historical abyss! A problem suited to be the masterpiece of a psychologist of the future."

 

--from Paul Jung's commentary on "The Secret of the Golden Flower"

 

 

 

Miraculous power and marvelous activity
Drawing water and chopping wood.
 

(“The Recorded Sayings of Layman P’ang:  A Ninth-Century Zen Classic”, Ruth Fuller Sasaki, Yoshitaka Iriya, Dana R. Fraser, p 46)

 

There’s a similar saying in “The Gospel According to Thomas”, a gnostic gospel:

 

Cleave a (piece of) wood, I am there;
lift up the stone and you will find Me there.
 

(“The Gospel According to Thomas”, log 77; coptic text established and translated by A. Guillaumont, H.-CH. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah ‘Abd Al Masih, p 43)

 

Sometimes people hold their breath in cleaving wood, or in lifting a heavy bucket or stone. Moshe Feldenkrais observed that some people hold their breath when getting up out of a chair, and he put forward a way to avoid that:

 

…When the center of gravity has really moved forward over the feet a reflex movement will originate in the old nervous system and straighten the legs; this automatic movement will not be felt as an effort at all.

 

(“Awareness Through Movement”, Moshe Feldenkrais, p 78)

 

 

Feldenkrais stipulated that:

 

… there must be no muscular effort deriving from voluntary control, regardless of whether this effort is known and deliberate or concealed from the consciousness by habit.

 

(ibid, p 76)

 

 

The paired sayings highlight moments when the weight of the body combines with a singular location of consciousness to cause “reflex movement” in the action of the body.

 

“Reflex movement” can also be engaged to sit upright, as the weight of the body combines with a singular location of consciousness.

 

In Gautama’s teaching, a singularity in the location of consciousness follows “making self-surrender the object of thought”:

 

… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.

 

(SN 48.10, tr. Pali Text Society vol V p 174; “noble” substituted for Ariyan)

 

 

In my experience:

 

…“one-pointedness” occurs when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a singular location in the body, and a person “lays hold of one-pointedness” when they remain awake as the singular location shifts.

 

(Just to Sit)

 

 

(Drawing Water and Chopping Wood)

 

 

There's more, in Drawing Water and Chopping Wood--Paul Jung can stop holding his breath.

 

 

[S:C]

On 20.12.2025 at 2:06 PM, Haribol said:

In the Pauline symbol of Christ

Do we know for sure that we can rely on the interpretation of someone who was not a direct eye witness nor a recognized student? 

How do we know the authority of the state and church did not again influence and water down the focus of the teaching to fit their narrative?!  

 

Edited Friday at 12:56 PM by S:C

[Haribol]

6 hours ago, S:C said:

Do we know for sure that we can rely on the interpretation of someone who was not a direct eye witness nor a recognized student? 

How do we know the authority of the state and church did not again influence and water down the focus of the teaching to fit their narrative?!  

 

We do not, my friend. I just see the Christ as an admirable and likeable fellow with beautifull teachings, and tbh, I dont really bother to much with the rest of the package of Church and state and scripture. To me, Christian = follower of Christ.