Question for Michael and others, too on THOUGHTS………….

I think it’s best not to think of this as “sides”, but as ongoing explorationof truth.

I read thru the article on chia site, a high level appropriation of taoist neidan by Chan Buddhists who needed to put it into their language and their worldview. I think its great that Chan buddhists want to practice neidan. In their languaging they have to put everything into the language of “mind”, as that is the Buddhist focus.

The problem is not the neidan method or the focus on stillness, which is basic Tao practice going back to Nei Yeh in 460. B.C., but the underlying worldview presented in the article. The basic supposition is that everything human in Later Heaven is separated from Tao, rather than part of Tao.

Here is the beginning premise summary:

“1. When we were in our mother’s womb, we were filled with the primordial energy of the Tao. In the natal state, original nature and the energy of life are united.
2. At birth we come into contact with the world. When air is inhaled through the nostrils, the primordial breath within is contaminated and the connection with the Tao is broken.”

The problem I have with this underlying premise is that I think its a false premise. Later Heaven is not an aberration and disconect from Tao, it is all part of Tao., an essential part of Tao process. Its not an accident or counter-tao that humans are born and they are separated from the primordial state – it is the clear manifestation of Tao process.

The premise inthis article appears aimed at someone who chooses not to live inthis world, i.e. for a Chan Buddhist monk trying to escape this world into a more perfect world of the primordial, a typical goal in hindu and Buddhist derived traditions. I believe this is essentially dualistic and escapist, even though the focus appears to be on achieving non dualism.

My exploration of this issue has led me to exactly the opposite conclusion: the the funamental purpose of humans is to grow the primordial within the post natal realm, which practically speaking means converting the primordial more skillfully into true yin and yang flow while stabilizing the immortal/sage consciousness within. When you’ve compelted your destiny then it may make sense to focus completely on withdtawal into hermit/monk lifestyle – that is a different intention for a different stage of one’s life.

There is no escaping the “corruption” of post-natal life, it doesn’t go away just because an adept heads off into the mountains and meditates. Unless you find a way to share that purificationand self-realization that occurs with this plane, your destiny (ming) will be incomplete even though your xing (essence) is more refined.

What that usually means is that your soul impels you into a cycle of retreat into pure mountains/meditation, followed by a cycle of living in the corrupt world that tests and truly refines your internal accomplishments in the cauldron of post natal fire and water that is merrily bubbling away on the surface, lawfully fed by the primordial sea of qi.

Smiles,
Michael

Hi Fajin:

Sounds like you are enjoying your time in the mountains, I hope you will continue to share your realizations when you have time. Maybe I will come visit you next year if you are there.

I think what Michael (I dont want to speak for Michael, just my view) is implying is each of the five shen must find its own destiny, now that is one way to state it and can be misunderstood. I think Chan can do that. Anyways, maybe the folowing example of the five shen approach can clarify.

The Yi needs to know its in a body, that it must use its attributes of conceptualization and mental body to take care of the physical body, to participate in keeping in strong and healthy, any system that does not do that is an imcomplete system. So in the Tao practice we do the Yi, our intellect includes this approach to life. The deeper implication is if the Yi denies this then it is polarized or creates a tension, whether conscious or not. And the capicity of to live from our Yuan condition is blocked, the polarization of Yi prevents it.

bagua

Hi Fajin and other contributors to this debate –

I just wanted to make clear something that Michael is saying which speaks to me, and which others do not seem to be addressing…

Fajin says that the personality overshadows original yuan nature and that therefore –

>>Zen training aims at reversing this and bringing our deep sub-concsious into play, our original nature<>the the fundamental purpose of humans is to grow the primordial within the post natal realm<<

– in other words, not merely to *find* the primordial but to *manifest* it here within the personality, within the actions, and fulfil fate, thus giving meaning to life.

It probably escapes few that one of the reasons for spiritual practice is to try and understand the deeper meaning of life. To me what Michael is saying (and I agree) is that the Buddhist doctrines often give the impression that meaning is not to be found here and now but in some 'other' place. That is why Michael quoted that passage which said that as soon as air is breathed contact with the Tao is lost. This is manifestly untrue. To me the entire point of life is that the Tao still supports and nourishes all that we are and all that we experience – and if we can manifest that awareness it redeems life.

To me the Buddhist attitude sometimes seems rather cynical, that in order to find the meaning *behind* life, which is seen in that tradition as purely *mental*, one first has to reject *physical* life as essentially meaningless, and admit that life is essentially 'apart' from anything truly important. Whereas life in my opinion is profoundly important – it's just that its importance is not necessarily clear without deep spiritual work of some kind.

Life cannot be essentially meaningless since meaning is what we live and breathe, what makes us survive. It is of course true that surface self covers up deeper meaning, but I believe that the Taoist way is to *balance* surface self so that deeper self is revealed within the personality and *used* to fulfil *destiny*. Later Heaven, in other words, *need* not be a manifestation of Early Heaven, but if we have the skill to make it so, *can* be.

Why do I say that the attitude of some kinds of Buddhism seems 'cynical' to me? – and not only Buddhism but Hinduism sometimes too? (Please understand I am not trying to insult anybody! I am just giving my gut reaction, the one I've always had. I would love to be told that this is not what Buddhists mean). It is because what some followers of these ways say often comes perilously close to the idea that, as soon as you are born, you have made some kind of mistake – you take your first gulp of air and with that gulp become "guilty of being alive". That means every human being alive is making this mistake, and every tree, every animal, everything.

Whereas what I believe is that, by our very actions and the way we live, we *determine* whether physical life is indeed a mistake. If we can allow what is deeper to manifest we find the way, right here in the Later Heaven and the physical. As we manifest it we ourselves prove the reasons and meaning of life, as it is actually lived.

One of Michael's first posts to me said something I had already learned independently, which is that there are certain forces in the universe that believe humanity's physical incarnation is a mistake to be corrected, rather than an opportunity to be grasped. Let us not play into their hands, he said, and I agree. We have to understand that we have come here to give meaning, or not, as we choose and have the heart to do. Thus to me it is a vital philosophical principle *never* to say that one is 'cut off from the Tao' by being alive. At most one could say one is potentially cut off from it. But even that is not really true – if it were, there would be no way back to the primordial, and there is.

What is at stake here, the meaning of our lives and destinies, demands that we recognise we are engines of the Tao here and now in the real physical world. How *could* we ever really be 'separate'?

NN

Hi fajin:

Humans are variations within the universe, the five shen are just variations of the yuan shen. If we look at Yuan shen in two we have hun and po. If we look at the yuan shen as five we have five shen, they are inseparable. Either model is effective.

If one of the five shen (ways to experience life)has been caused to extend to an extreme from many possibilities: abuse, stress, over-activity, diet, etc. they polarize, by this I mean they are out of balance and all kinds of conditions manifest which prevent us from living from a yuan space or awareness. We chase the problems associated with the “out of balance five shen system”, for exmaple, Yi is to much theory, to intellectual, too anal.

Our practices help restore the balance and allow the possiblity to live from a yuan awareness. There are many flowery ways to say this in alchemical and spiritual terms, but this is as clear in every day terms as I can express.

There is only one Zen, no more no less. Everything else is fantasy.

Smiling in the Dao,

bagua

Thank goodness for those power naps, otherwise I would be sleeping (3:30 am) during this lovely discussion.

Michael,

My main point for ming and xing is that they are dualities and that there is something between the dualities. When we live in that between, ming and xing do their stuff, ie. mutually nourish each other.

It is not that I have gone through a samadhi and now I think about going to a cave to cultivate this experience deeper and deeper. You maintain this wu-wei through all action. Wether you are chopping wood and carrying water or typing something from China to the States.

It’s about living your life like this all the time. Some people tend to do away with attachments in the world and go to a cave because that’s all that they really need. That is all that anyone really needs, to become who they really are.

And it is not that it is for the purpose of getting out of your body just for original spirit. You relate this out-of-body to ungroudedness or heaven, which is complementary to earth. This is within grounded/ungrounded (heaven/earth).

Yuan shen is the primordial concsiousness within the yin-yang concsiousness of xin and yi. It is the primordial concsiousness within the wuxing concsiousness of the five shen. It is the primordial concsiousness within the bagua concsiousness of 8 chakras. This is a super-concsiousness state of awareness and life is lived in this state.

Smiles,
Fajin

>>The 10,000 Things ARE the Body of the Original Spirit<<

– that is it in a nutshell – mind you Max says his teachers say the same. So I don't understand this business of 'illusion' and being disconnected from Tao by being in a body that, if Max's teachers don't say it, still seems to get said.

I would also like to reply to Fajin when he says that 'Tao aims at movement, Zen at stillness' – that is a strong statement of this duality I think. What we are talking about here is to say that there is ultimately no difference between movement and stillness since each is connected to the other. You could say that Tao aims at stillness through movement, first to make the movement into a reflection of stillness. I don't know enough about zen to say if perhaps it goes in the other direction, making stillness first.

Would like to affirm I'm not seeing this as an 'argument'. I'm talking here about things that I have heard Buddhists and Hindus say all my life and just never understood!

NN