On Michael’s opinion of Bodri and Nan

Hi

It is true that there is no written evidence found (yet) of Huang Di as a historical figure except texts attributed to him written in later periods, yet he is venerated as the founder of the chinese calendar which dates back 4700 years. Although oral traditions are to be taken with a grain of salt, there is often truth in them: as an example, there are over 600 legends, or oral histories around the world of a deluge that flooded the world. Historical fact or myth?
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My understanding is Yellow Emperor did not found the chinese calendar, but had someone else figure it out, once again this is myth. If you explore the calendar you see it has changed many times over the years, its beginning time has changed. one beleif is is started the first day, of the first year of Yellow Emperors reign, for someone that it is not known exists, not realy reliable.

Hung Di, Fi Xi, Yu the great, all myth figures. Fu Xi is depicted as half human/half animal, should we beleive this?

I propose people do not blindly accept oral history, open mind is truthful, blind faith, wheter adam-eve or fu xi, huang di is more fantasy.

True, but material history only shows us a small part of what has been found to date. The Shu kingdom, which was contemporary with or predates the Shang, made elaborate bronze sculptures at sanxingdui dated to 2000 BC by archaelogists, was said to have originated in 4000 BC by the poet Li Bai. They did not have written texts yet they had a highly developed technology for that time period. How did they communicate, through oral tradition? maybe, but we do not know, or they hid their writing.
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People existed, but we should not assume things people claim existed at that time did. This is a lead of faith, which is ok as long as one knows its a lead of faith.

There is a scholarly work that describes the origin of the yin yang and five element theories, and that they were originally from separate streams of thought. I can’t remember where the reference is for this, when I have time I will dig it up. The “Huangdi Neijing Suwen” does talk about the five phases of qi in the human as it relates to health and pathological conditions. Technically it was Huangdi’s advisors that describe it and not the emperor, but this just points to a large body of knowledge that existed at the time that may have been secret in the same way that the He Tu symbol was passed down .
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Zou Yan is credited with creating the Natural School, which is one component of the “Systems of Correpsondences” that comprises the base of Chinese Medicine.

Yin-Yang School was orignally separte from Five Phase, they did not agree and had conflict, but the CHinese had an idea called “Accumulation”, in this way they saught to collect and intergrate numerous systems, looking for similarities and accepting differences. Complete reality school it seems to me is based on this idea. Taoism survivied because of this.

I just cannot accept that Huang Di was really involved in Nei Jing, the philosophies inside it did not exist at the time of Xia Dynasty.

The Shang believed “Curse of the Ancestors” was the cause of Disease, this changed in Zhou and later Zhou Five Phases, Yin-Yang, Homeopathigc Magic, Tao Cosmology (no yin-yang/five phases was part of Tao until Warring Period and Han), Confucian, Indeginious religion and demonlogy. This is the historical evidence.

This is an interesting work in that the authour, Wei Po Yang, uses terms of external alchemy to describe a meditation process. The terminology may have been new, but texts like the Nei Yeh and Daodejing describe meditation practices involving circulation of vital breath (qi) and essence (jing). It is the same case with these methods, that if alchemical meditation existed to be written about in 220 AD, how long did it exist as a tradition before that?
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If wei po really wrote the book, he was a genius, combining Natural School and cosmology into a method, but if you study world history in this few hundred years so much happened, socrates, aristotle, hippocrates, all was occuring in the same time frame as warring thu Han.

I only related to you the meditation taught to our group by Quan Zhen daoists in modern times (not a text). Modern Quan Zhen Daoism recognizes the work of the immortals Lu Dong Bin (the patron of alchemy), and Chen Tuan who was famous for his dream practice, and left a cosmological diagram of the wuji-taiji-five elements-ten thousand things at Hua Shan.
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How do we know Lu Dong was and is an immortal, this is people passing on this info. The founder of Quan Zhen said he got the transmission from Lu Dong, this has been done trhoughout taoist history, from the days of Zhang Da Ling/Mater of Celestial School/founder of religous taoism, claiming to receive the transmission of Tao from Lao Zi, and many followed this from that time on.

I just think we should begin to separate myth, legend, fantasy from what we really know and our direct experience.

Thanks

Hi:

I generally agree with you. But one thing. If one promotes themselves as receiving info from celestial beings or communicates with them to get their knowledge and it is not true, it is a false energy, students follow based on this, and I think this is not healthy.

Lao Zi talks about the tao and the interconnectedness of life, I dont beleive he talks about communicating with celestial beings. I personally find Lao Zi to be one of the greatest writers that is down to earth, living a simple life, seeing things as they are, live in wu wei (nothing extra/non-conditioned mind). i hear so many talk about secret and esoteric things from him, I think they are just adding things to his words, they should heed his advice when reading his work. Just my opinion.

In my view, the enlighten ones see the magic in everyday life, the wonder of the life we live in, not beings of other planets and dimensions. The Sun and Moon, to be viewed with no-mind, wu wei mind, and the wonder and magic of the human spirit allows us to directly perceive the magic of those planets, which are a reflection of our nature; no need to add ideas or beliefs to it, this is the magic of Chan and the writing of the great chinese and taoist poets. If Taoist Alchemy as we practice it can attune us to this, wonderful. Other traditions have as effective methods.

Nice chatting

Hello,

Thanks for sharing your view and experience. Below selected comments is my feedback.

Thanks for your thoughts. Whether or not anyone has received communications from celestial beings, it is important to remember that all Daoists that are revered as immortals (physical or spiritual) are human. We practice from a human tradition that reflects the changing cycles of nature here on earth (the five seasons etc.), yet those changing cycles are also reflected in the planets and the five (seven) directions are reflected in the entirety of the physical universe.
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From my experience, we are these cycles, we just attune to what we are, we are part of the whole. We dont connect to something we are not. So its a matter of who do we do this when through over-development of the intellect and unfavorable emotional patterns and conditioning.I make no separation between planets, cycles, etc., the process of distinguising these things is the root of the separation and the need for some type of cultivation/alchemy.

When we talk about celestial beings, could they be also humans that have merged with the celestial mind? The intelligence of the planets and stars?
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This is very linear thinking, we are part of the whole, regardless of what we do, our intellect/conditioning creates the illusion we are separate. The celestial mind is the everyday clear mind, it is always here for us to attune to, in my view alchemy is a way to attune to it.

I agree that Lao Zi is very practical in his approach, and don’t mean to imply that he was hanging out with aliens from the pleiades. When Lao Zi talks about wu wei, how shall we translate that thought? Literally it could read as “without-being”(in the world, yet still in the world). It seems that for me his writing strips everything down to simplicity, that the “sage prefers the inner to the outer”, yet still lives in the physical world. He delves deeply into the inner virtue qualities of the natural world as it interacts with human life, he sees the inner streams that flow and shape our daily lives.
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These inner streams are our streams, if we choose to align with it. Lao Zi did one special thing, he promoted all people had an equal chance to connect to the tao or realize their eternal nature or that their nature is one with the universe, in my research only the Emperor and his selected ones had this chance and used the Oracles, this what was promoted to the common people, he began the change in it.

I think cultivation/alchemy can be simple or complex, the chia/minn approach is a complex method, has very intellectual aspects, which can be wonderful but also can be a barrier too. Things are not so systematic, step by step, oen can acheive the final goal with the basics, if one is ripe.

So, he sees the simplicity of daily life, yet also the inner qualities of pure virtue consciousness that shape it from the source, as we are born and return in each moment.
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I beleive Lao Zi presents that the inner pure virtue manifest naturally by having Wu Wei, stop relying on the intellect, it has its purpose, no more than a tool. When the mind is clear and sees things as they are the magic of everyday life and the realization we are part of the whole is realized, no big secret, its our nature. If one is not there Alchemy is a process hopefully to bring one there.

One question I would have about the idea of going “straight to the source” through stillness/emptiness meditation is that doesn’t it miss all the important stuff in between? If we view the entirety of nature from the wuji to the physical as being interconnected and valid, and we focus only on the wuji without integrating our vital organ shen and everything else in between, aren’t we missing an important step? It is true that to integrate all the intermediate parts is a longer path, but one well worth the time in my view.
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The Taoist model, Wu Ji to ….. is just a model, the entire model exists at once, not step by step, Wu Ji exists within every aspect, this is why we are enlightned, we just need to realize it. Its right infront of use at all times. There is no one way for all to realizet this. Remeber in the taoist community, some use basic nmodel (Ni’s practices, some like complex, elaborate systems. This is why I mentioned Lao Zi, his writings are straight, clear, not complex formulas. SO there are many ways to realize our true nature, this is my point. Utlimately, in the White cloud method, one must let go of the model and realize they are part of the eternal nature of life.

That is how I would interpret Lao Zi when he talks about cultivating virtue in one’s self, family, community and planet is through inner cultivation, integrating all those aspects.
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Yes, Lao Zi promotes this is out true nature, there is nothing to add, just become aware of who we are, its right there.

Basically, Lao Zi explains 81 ways to expalin the same thing.

Not simply about going out and doing good deeds to inspire others to do the same, but by inspiring them through inner work. Whether one thinks that inner cultivation in this way is valid is another question.
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Inner-Outer, from the perspective of our true nature there is no difference. This one acheivement, no differece between these. Its only the intellect that makes these distinctions.

Nice chatting.

Just a few thoughts,

From my experience, alchemy is about cultivating the deep center, the deep fusion point of stillness. To call this deep state “empty” though, is misleading because while it is formless, it still contains consciousness.

I think there is no argument when daoists say that they practice deep stillness meditation, but some people object to the term “empty”, because nothing is really empty, although it may be formless.

The argument seems to have arisen here partially between Bodri and Nan’s folks saying that alchemy is a false path of “spinning empty wind chi”, and that stillness/emptiness meditation of stilling the thoughts is the ONLY method that produces results.

I think there is also some disagreement by daoists on this site about the effectiveness of “sitting and forgetting” because they perceive it leaves out a number of intermediate steps that help to integrate the human with the deep formless.