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Hi Nnonnth,
I would like to say what Michael told me, that this is an ongoing continuation of truth. I don’t like to see this as arguing, but due to these discussions we have all learned so much and it leads us to more things.
They seem to be more of intellect than wisdom, but that’s because we disagree with the models and what things actually are. I hope that you don’t see this as arguing but as a means to truth. We are using intellect to reach wisdom, just as yin-yang is used to reach Wu Ji.
About this whole talk of Wu Ji…
The main thing that Michael thinks is that Buddhists have it confused that stilling the mind can lead one to the final goal, he thinks that it is just emptying one’s xin/heart-mind and you adopt a neutral stance and are ready to enter the alchemical field.
He thinks that Wu Ji is a much farther destination than being “everywhere, yet nowhere”. But I’m trying to say that it is a like a turtle shell that you must take everywhere with you on your alchemical journey.
So, I recommend you try it for a few months, and then I promise you won’t be dissatisfied with it.
All the best,
Fajin… because without direct experience of all these methods I can say no more. I hope it’s realized that I am very ignorant! – probably is. But sometimes the ignorant can have something useful to say.
I just want it known that I personally think everyone in this discussion is making important points – speaking as an ignoramus. Now I must go find out for myself!
NN
As a musician I found listening to music of zen buddhists to be a nice transmition. It can give you a feel for it that is deeper then the books. Well it did for me. Stan Richardson is great.
Fajin,
Here’s your original post that prompted my reply:——–
>Yuan is yin or prenatal. Postnatal is yang. Primordial is Wu Ji, or stillness, the void (macrocosmically), yuan shen (microcosmically). In the microcosmic sense, ie. ourselves, we attempt to return to our primordial nature. That is the final goal of Daoist and Buddhists.>In Daoist nei dan, the shen to wu stage is the return to nothingness. So it is final because it is beyond time, or transcendent. It is the moment. To understand how to experience the moment, you have to practice Zen.
———–
“To understand how to experience the moment, you have to practice Zen”. Such a statement has quite a bit of hubris, and is made even more confusing since the basic zen method is the baasic Tao method.There are many variants on Taoist cosmology and use of the terms. I haven’t noticed Buddhism using cosmology (and its implied process) so much as they rely on Ontology, i.e. defined states of being that are permanent rather than processual. Maybe you could refer me to some Zen writing on their cosmology and its nature of being “processual” rather than focused on sudden enlightenment taking you into absolute states of knowing the moment.
I took your equation of yuan qi as “yin” or pre-natal rather than primordial/neutral as my starting point.
To classify yuanqi, Original Breath as polarized I think is a mistake linguistically, it impies the first breath taken to form the seed of Creation is already polarized, and that effectively eliminates the possibility of neutrality (or neutral witness) within manifestation. Its saying the Orignal Self is Yin.I use the model of hundun, the primordial chaos-unity, as the vessel for the Original Breath before it begins to move and polarize into taiji. Read Norman Girardot’s Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism for the Myth of the Empty Gourd, and how the yuan qi cracks open and begins self-generating itself. It appears that the gourd is generating itself from “nothingness”, but the process he finds in early Taoist texts is yuan qi dividing into yin-yang qi. He speculates that this originates in early fertility cults that worshipped the vegetatative process of nature.
But if we agree hundun/primordial chaos is “knowable” as the ground of the present moment, which I believe it is (and it seems you agree), then I do go one step further and distinguish it from “wuji” , literally the “not knowable”. And of course wuji is omni-present, there is no argument about that. Its just that I take wuji as as the unknowable mystery underlying the Primordial Ground/Original Being.
You and the Buddhists, as I understand it, claim to know the unknowable. To me that just means the words have become meaningless. I don’t think this is a rigidity of alchemy, as bagua suggests, it is just a viewpoint about cosmology. And I also know that the transformational experiences are paradoxical and transcend 3-D language. But that doesn’t mean we should totally abandon language (wont’ happen) or make extraordinary and unproveable claims (always seems to happen with religion).
Its the relationship between wuji and self that is being discussed here – as NN’s says, it comes down to what one defines as Self. Does it makes sense linguistically to say that Self can grasp Non-Self (wuji)? I don’t think so. This is why I think the original Pali Buddhists declared that there was no self, it was illusory, since it arose from Non-Self and that non-self must be the true ground.
So what you are left with is telling others to try it, you will soon be in emptiness and that is the wuji, you can slip right out of your Self into Non-Self. That is where I say that the linguistic love affair with Emptiness fools you. you are merely expanding to another level of self-awareness that feels more empty (relatively speaking), it is not truly empty because the Self, by definition, has an ESSENCE that has been born from the Wuji.
This is a real distinction that you (and other Buddhists) disagree with me on. I say that Essence (=Beingness itself) cannot be destroyed or dissolved once created. That there is only One Original Being underlying the 10,000 beings, and that none of the 10,000. individuals has the right to “tear” itself from the fabric of creation and permanently eliminate itself into Non-Being.
That Essence and Self have a reality that once granted by the Wuji, cannot be taken away, any more than the Original Being can take any of the 10,000 beings right to exist away.That we can grow our awareness of Original Being and Non-Being, but that awareness strengthens our sense of self, and cannot eliminate/dissolve it.
it comes down to this:
Orignal Essence is non-polarized, it contains the very essence of self born from the wuji. But it is unable to make any distinctions, it is in a Unity State. So there is No-Self Awareness, just the Original Awareness.
That Original Awareness is what I believe the Buddhists are confusing with Emptiness, there is no content of separate self inside the Primordial Cosmic Egg/Gourd. That is Unity, by definition, everything is experienced as Oneness. Its a neutral state, i.e. non-polarized. No distinctions. But Oneness is NOT None-ness or Non-Self of the wuji.
But once that Original egg/gourd cracks open and the essence gets polarized, the self-awareness is made possible by the taiji process – you have a first distinction made, yin-yang is the term for that.
For me, the end of this train of thought can be summarized by the question:
Can you put the Original Essence that began to move (taiji) into yin-yang and later divided into 10,000 things — can you put them back into the Cosmic Egg, and then reverse the birth of the Cosmic Egg so it disappears back into its womb whence it was born, the wuji?I think some Buddhists are falsely claiming that they can simply bypass the entire process of Creation and skip back over the eons of Collective Process and the multiple dimensions and stay permanently in the Supreme Mystery. This is simply my personal skepticism, I have never met or seen anyone who credibly could give meaning to those words to me – I always see too much evidence of an untransformed self/body remaining here.
I am saying that awareness of Oneness or especially awareness of the Supreme Mystery is differrent than merging with it or permanently dissolving the personal essence of the Self into it.
That the reason you cannot merge with it is because your personal self/Essence is part of the whole of manifestation, and that you cannot divide yourself from its process. You can lead it in one direction, i.e towards Onesness and wuji byeond it, and the beings that continue that aspect of relating to the wuji are what I define as Immortal Beings,i.e. they continue bringing individual awareness to the Collective of what is possible. This helps to end the separation between the physical plane and the subtle planes. The limit to the process: the Individual Self can only merge back into the Collective Self, and Collective Self is always in a relationship to Non-Self, i.e. wuji.
The reason i don’t believe the Collective Self is dissolving itself into the Wuji is because I see that it is still in conflict with itself over the process of Creation, hence all the suffering. So until it resolves that problem, i think it is purely fantasy and escapism to believe you can merge into wuji, even though it is always present as the non-ground of the Primordial Ground of Being (Yuan jing-qi-shen).
I think neidan can only take you back to the Original State of Oneness, that it can microcosmically restore that. That wuji is always at the core of that transofrmational process. But that is a not a quick piece of work to accomplish at the level of jing. Certainly the shen can shift its awareness immediately, and have an experience of feeling emptied of some level of Self, possibly quite cosmic. But I wouldn’t personally want to claim that is the wuji.
More differences in language and models to chew on,
Michael
Michael, I have to say that everything you are saying there agrees with the best information I have from the well-realized people I have known. Like you the best of them simply stated things as a fact with no mystification. NN
Hi Michael,
I will try to clarify as much as possible.
>>Maybe you could refer me to some Zen writing on their cosmology and its nature of being “processual” rather than focused on sudden enlightenment taking you into absolute states of knowing the moment.<>To classify yuanqi, Original Breath as polarized I think is a mistake linguistically, it impies the first breath taken to form the seed of Creation is already polarized, and that effectively eliminates the possibility of neutrality (or neutral witness) within manifestation. Its saying the Orignal Self is Yin<>But if we agree hundun/primordial chaos is “knowable” as the ground of the present moment, which I believe it is (and it seems you agree), then I do go one step further and distinguish it from “wuji” , literally the “not knowable”. And of course wuji is omni-present, there is no argument about that. Its just that I take wuji as as the unknowable mystery underlying the Primordial Ground/Original Being.<>You and the Buddhists, as I understand it, claim to know the unknowable. To me that just means the words have become meaningless.<>Its the relationship between wuji and self that is being discussed here – as NN’s says, it comes down to what one defines as Self. Does it makes sense linguistically to say that Self can grasp Non-Self (wuji)? I don’t think so.<>This is why I think the original Pali Buddhists declared that there was no self, it was illusory, since it arose from Non-Self and that non-self must be the true ground.<>This is a real distinction that you (and other Buddhists) disagree with me on. I say that Essence (=Beingness itself) cannot be destroyed or dissolved once created. That there is only One Original Being underlying the 10,000 beings, and that none of the 10,000. individuals has the right to “tear” itself from the fabric of creation and permanently eliminate itself into Non-Being.<>That Essence and Self have a reality that once granted by the Wuji, cannot be taken away, any more than the Original Being can take any of the 10,000 beings right to exist away.That we can grow our awareness of Original Being and Non-Being, but that awareness strengthens our sense of self, and cannot eliminate/dissolve it.<>Orignal Essence is non-polarized, it contains the very essence of self born from the wuji. But it is unable to make any distinctions, it is in a Unity State. So there is No-Self Awareness, just the Original Awareness.<>For me, the end of this train of thought can be summarized by the question:
Can you put the Original Essence that began to move (taiji) into yin-yang and later divided into 10,000 things — can you put them back into the Cosmic Egg, and then reverse the birth of the Cosmic Egg so it disappears back into its womb whence it was born, the wuji?<>Maybe you could refer me to some Zen writing on their cosmology and its nature of being “processual” rather than focused on sudden enlightenment taking you into absolute states of knowing the moment.<>To classify yuanqi, Original Breath as polarized I think is a mistake linguistically, it impies the first breath taken to form the seed of Creation is already polarized, and that effectively eliminates the possibility of neutrality (or neutral witness) within manifestation. Its saying the Orignal Self is Yin<>But if we agree hundun/primordial chaos is “knowable” as the ground of the present moment, which I believe it is (and it seems you agree), then I do go one step further and distinguish it from “wuji” , literally the “not knowable”. And of course wuji is omni-present, there is no argument about that. Its just that I take wuji as as the unknowable mystery underlying the Primordial Ground/Original Being.<>You and the Buddhists, as I understand it, claim to know the unknowable. To me that just means the words have become meaningless.<>Its the relationship between wuji and self that is being discussed here – as NN’s says, it comes down to what one defines as Self. Does it makes sense linguistically to say that Self can grasp Non-Self (wuji)? I don’t think so.<>This is why I think the original Pali Buddhists declared that there was no self, it was illusory, since it arose from Non-Self and that non-self must be the true ground.<>This is a real distinction that you (and other Buddhists) disagree with me on. I say that Essence (=Beingness itself) cannot be destroyed or dissolved once created. That there is only One Original Being underlying the 10,000 beings, and that none of the 10,000. individuals has the right to “tear” itself from the fabric of creation and permanently eliminate itself into Non-Being.<>That Essence and Self have a reality that once granted by the Wuji, cannot be taken away, any more than the Original Being can take any of the 10,000 beings right to exist away.That we can grow our awareness of Original Being and Non-Being, but that awareness strengthens our sense of self, and cannot eliminate/dissolve it.<>Orignal Essence is non-polarized, it contains the very essence of self born from the wuji. But it is unable to make any distinctions, it is in a Unity State. So there is No-Self Awareness, just the Original Awareness.<>For me, the end of this train of thought can be summarized by the question:
Can you put the Original Essence that began to move (taiji) into yin-yang and later divided into 10,000 things — can you put them back into the Cosmic Egg, and then reverse the birth of the Cosmic Egg so it disappears back into its womb whence it was born, the wuji?<<*Everything returns to its source.
Michael,
I think the rest of what you have said after this is a variation of the above and I have put my take on it. I would only like to comment on one thing. Let's say that you are centering your awareness on your lower dantian. Many thoughts rush to your mind, like sleepiness, laziness, etc. They all influence you and you start grasping onto thoughts until you lose concentration on the dantian. Or you are circulating qi in the orbit and the phone rings and startles you and the qi is left in the head.
My point is that you don't just get qigong deviations, but that your concentration is not one pointed. One pointed concentration MUST be developed for nei dan purposes.
In Zen, when your concentration becomes very deeply one pointed, you become absorbed in it, you are more concsious of it. It is not unconcsiousness but the reverse, superconcsiousness. This is non-mind, or wu-hsin what the Daoists call. It is the natural way and is not against the natural way. The process is reversed and goes shen-qi-jing as you cultivate shen, or non-mind, not no mind.
Look at this:
"Some ask which is most important vitality, energy, or spirit. Master Ziyang said, 'Spirit is most important.' The basic spirit is the true mind, which is the true essence. the medicine used therefore is not material medicine; the subtle action of the work of wizardry is all in this essence. Ancient custom listed it as a medicine, but later Taoists ignorant of the root source of the Great Way often disregarded this. So basic spirit wound up as a 'medicine', with an extra 'intent' outside the basic spirit to employ it. Nothing could be more incoherent than this." [PT, p. 34]
"Master Ziyang said, 'Using spirit, use the basic spirit, not the thinking spirit.'
"He also said, '… Basic essence is nothing other than energy which is congealed and alive.' And, 'When the basic spirit appears, the basic energy arises; when basic essence is restored, basic energy is born.'
"Some ask if the basic spirit and the thinking spirit are one or two. Mind, essence, and spirit are one … When this basic spirit is later moved by emotional consciousness, the basic spirit sinks into emotional consciousness and turns into the thinking spirit." [PT, p. 35]
"Master Sanfeng said, 'What is intent? It is the outward function of the basic spirit; it is not that there is also an intent in addition to the basic spirit.'
"Master Ziyang said, 'Mind is the natural leader: when it is used without artificiality, then what activates it is the basic spirit. This is the alchemical use of mind.'
"So you should not overactivate intent. Once you overactivate intent, you are trying to force progress and not being natural. The problems caused by the toil of forced exercises are not trivial … If you have even a single thought of deliberate arrangement, then you are overactivating intent." [PT, p. 43]
Point is, you apply this one pointedness to building a pearl, or steaming jing, or whatever. But Buddhist meditation uses a simple focus like following the breath because it is easier to pay attention to. You take this onepointedness to all things in life. This is what is meant by Zen within Dao, or stillness within movement, or Wu Ji within 10,000, etc.
Regards,
Fajin
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