Question for Michael Winn

Can you say something about shen theory?

I’ve been told that the heart spirit “is” our identity, the liver spirit(s) expresses it, the kidney spirit “is” our body and the lung spirit(s) does bodily functions which we don’t control consciously. Is that correct?

Where does that leave the spleen spirit? Is it just a background for the others? Is Yi the same word as the Yi meaning mind intent, which Mantak Chia talks about in Awaken Healing Light?

If the spleen spirit does have a quality of will, is that only activated once there is a measure of unity between the others, or is it that will which holds them together from the start?

You seem to be the only teacher who talks about this. Can you recommend any text to supply a background on the subject? Most Taoist texts only talk about the hun and po, which seems odd, because a lot of alchemy work seems to be more heart and kidney based.

Also the texts often talk in terms of control and subduing of unwilling spirits, (like Gurdjieff saying “whatever the body wants, do the opposite”) where you speak of harmony. Do they have different goals?

Thank you for any light you can shed.