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Been busy lately, will answer the other post soon.
My understanding of the idea of pure yang is that it is a corruption of the yuan qi concept. possibly influenced by the confucian ideas of hierarchy, or just another metaphorical way of speech used in the alchemical texts, or maybe another way to say “cultivated spirit given substance” for lack of a better way to say it.
The goal of daoist alchemy is to cultivate neutral qi, and then give it substance by cooking it with jing and shen. Really it all happens at once, but the process of rooting the neutral force permanently into this plane of physical vibration through cultivation: “Giving substance to spirit”, is the key aspect of cultivation (in my opinion).
The literal translation of the Chinese characters means “beyond limit”, or “without limit”.
Of course, by its very nature, there is no definition in words that could define it…it is by its nature undefinable!
An indirect way of describing it would be a field of neutral consciousness/energy/matter that is pure potential.
The best method for verification is self-observation. Since Chinese medicine is an art form that has been studied and practiced for AT LEAST 3000 years, the channels and elemental interactions mentioned have been cross-verified by hundreds if not thousands of humans during that time.
To me, the validity of these sources would be confirmed by the number of people that have been able to access it using the channels/elements and have cured themselves of various ailments.
And also that if you cultivate qi, you can feel it flowing through the channels as well as the different qualities of it (jing, qi shen, yin, yang, yuan qi etc.).
That makes sense that a rabbit for example could affect one person much differently than another depending on their personal configuration of elements/animals.
So if a person has a weak day master, then it is really about how all the other elements and animal aspects affect that day master…it is about the interaction of all of them, not the importance or dominance of the year vs day? I guess this is all about “looking at the big picture”, or the process and flow of interactions.
Any thoughts on how the year element/animal affects a persons personality versus the element/animal of the day master?
There is a good glossary in the book “Nourishing Destiny” by Lonny Jarrett that has many terms specific to Daoist cosmology. Also “Read and Write Chinese” by Rita Mei-Wah Choy, or you could go here:
and find the chinese-enghlish dictionary, but just remember that if you are searcing chinese terms in pinyin (the romanization of chinese words, i.e. chinese words spelled using the roman alphabet) to pu “pinyin” in the search terms or it won’t turn up anything.
I just read your post, and do agree that these two types of raw foods, based on the “LIVING ENERGY” in grasses, sprouts, juices and earth (clay) as put forth by Ann wigmore and Edward Szekely are well researched and practiced, and highly beneficial for peoples health.
People should also note that in China, “cooked” vegetables are often just lightly steamed or fried so that the broccoli or bok choy for example is still crispy, not overcooked, and is in fact very close to being raw.
I really like chapatis so will look in in my books to find that info from Edward Szekely.
I would also recommend a book called “Earth Cures” written by Raymond Dextreit and translated by Michael Abehsera – there is an awesome raw liver tonic in there: grated carrots marinated in lemon juice, or if you have a vitamixer, just throw them in there. tasty.
OK, thanks for the insights. So it appears that they would be different levels of a person’s personality. I guess my next question is how can one cultivate either the year or day master aspects of ones personality to make them more balanced or dominant?
Because we are really talking about the ten celestial stems (elements) and the 12 terrestrial stems (animals).I know in the chinese elemental system, the planets represent extensions of the five elements, is this also true for western (Vedic) astrology?
I have also found the four pillar astrology useful in determining the balance of elements in my self and others (I bought the program in its first edition back in 2004, which I actually like the layout more than the 2nd edition).
According to the four pillar astrology book by David Twicken, it seems that the year animal/elements refer to your grandparents, the month animal/elements to your parents, the day animal/elements to your “core self” or day master, and the hour animal/elements to your children or siblings.
My question is how much does the year animal/elements influence you as opposed to the day master…is the day master more an indicator of your “true” personality, or the year animal?
Here is an excerpt from Livia Kohns book (p.129), that represents the stages of eating that some Taoists go through as they cultivate (from the Xuanmen Dalun, “Great Treatise on the Gate of all WOnders”, translated by Eskildsen):
1. Coarse eating: grains, “to terminate cravings and desires”
2. Rough eating: vegetables, “to abandon fats”
3. Limited eating: no food after noon, “to eliminate confusion and defilement”
4. Absorbing essences: talisman water and cinnabar efflorescences, “to embody flower stems”
5. Absorbing sprouts: directional qi “to change into sprouts”
6. Absorbing light: sun, moon, stars, “to transform into light”
7. Absorbing qi: universal energy, “to become qi and wander in the six directions”
8. Absorbing primordial qi: cosmic energy, “to merge with heaven and earth”
9. Embryo respiration: pure qi of creation, “to become one with Dao”I can dig all of this except the cinnabar… also very cool to see how the gradual qi cultivation methods closely mirror the seven formulas of One Cloud.
It doesn’t mention if the food is cooked or raw though.
I agree, that if you are in good physical and energetic shape than your overall functioning is much stronger…imagine people who live off the land, and how much more physical exercise they do every day compared to our sedentary overly intellectual society…with the resulting lack of physical body awareness. Being constantly exposed to the elements in everyday life puts the body much more in tune with its inner and outer environment.
Interestingly there were two branches of practice in early daoism…the southern branch favoured physical development (through martial arts or other physical training) much more than the northern branch.
I usually eat only apples, carrots and nuts in the morning and afternoon, and usually cooked food in the evening, and it feels fine with me.
I can see how that happens, because of all the work required to digest something in its raw state as opposed to half-digested (cooked).
It does seem though that almost all animals in the world eat raw food and do just fine, except some that pre-chew it, but that seems mostly for their babies. I guess this leads us off into another question about the origin of humans. All things said and done, I really enjoy cooked food, but are humans so weak that we cannot eat a reasonable amount of raw food?
For me it makes no difference…I’m the same sign regardless of the system as it falls within the middle of all the ranges.
I have noticed that people that seemingly completely lack one element in taoist (earth based) astrology sometimes are dominant in that element in Western (planet based) astrology. Interesting that the lack of elements on earth is balanced by a more celestial level.
