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I have been doing a lot of reading. I just picked up Lonny Jarrett’s book Nourishing Destiny. I read until my head swims and then I am so relieved to simply do a moving practice and realize all those words are but reflections of the incredible beings we are…without changing a thing. Move my two arms and all yin and yang are in motion with a deepening central core.
I do get a bit stuck when I consider heaven a la taoism. From what I experience in my body, earth in the 3d world means the gravitational center of this planet beneath my feet and heaven is… well,everything off planet, above my head.
However in the multi dimensional worlds, the sun and planets and galaxies up there, are also of the “earthly” dimension and heaven is the no time no space place right here. I think the terms early heaven and later heaven apply to this distinction.
My question is just this exploration of the terms “heaven and earth” which are used so much in taoist studies and what they actually refer to in practice. Any comments? baba
Heaven is the furnace and Earth the cauldron, in daoist alchemical lingo, I’ve learned recently. In between are the ingredients we work with: kan and li, the five elements.
It’s very similar to western alchemy.I take heaven to mean the energy of the deepest sense of vital presence at the root of our awareness, which is also the source of manifestation, earth, though in reality there isn’t one without the other, yet true yang (heaven) takes precedence, just like chi or fluidic energy is more immediately vital to life than air, which is more vital to life than water, which is more vital to life than food.
In practice I would say tuning into to heaven as most intimate presence-energy means to distinquish it from surface thinking, and more deeply from the collective dream we are connected to. This automatically has an “alchemical effect” on “earth” as our body and persona and life situation. In alchemy you use this familiarity with or tuning into pure presence energy to work at transforming the body-cum-environment, expressed as repeated ascending and descending, or repeated dissolving and coagulating (each time at a higher level of efficiency or beauty or aesthetic worth).
That’s a few stabs at a complex topic.
Simon
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