"Within the mind there is yet another mind." --Nei-yeh, trans. Harold D. Roth
The concept of the Tao (the Way) has profoundly impacted world culture, most notably through the many translations of the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu. Its impact on ancient China was foundational, in the sense that it gave rise to Taoist religion, spirituality, cosmology, theory of statecraft and war, social relationships, painting, poetry, medicine and alchemy. Moreover, Taoism became interwoven with Buddhism from India, giving birth to Chan Buddhism (later known as Zen when transplanted to Japan). It is also closely associated with the I Ching (Book of Changes).
What has most fascinated me about Taoist thought, though, are its roots in mysticism and efforts to establish a protocol whereby practitioners might experience the personal awakening often referred to as enlightenment. This is a tradition that can be traced back to Taoism's earliest written text, the Nei-yeh (Inward Training), which was produced well before the more famous Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu.
The Tao, as the Way, may be best conceived of as the Way of Nature. Practitioners are encouraged to increase their sensitivity to the more subtle forces both within their environment and themselves (for example, through feng shui and t'ai chi, respectively). This recognition of the similarity of forces at work externally and internally proves instrumental in providing a first-hand experience of the unity of subject and object, which forms the very basis of the mystical experience.
This particularly shows up in the Taoist appreciation of naturalness. When turned outward, this appreciation produced some of the most sublime art and poetry based on a spontaneous identification with the places and seasons of nature. When turned inward, on the other hand, naturalness was used to make practitioners aware of their own original nature that exists prior to any familial or cultural conditioning. This inward training forms the basis of Taoist mind-body-spirit exercises aimed at returning the practitioner to the natural state of enlightenment.
"If you are able to cast off sorrow, happiness, joy, anger, desire, and profit-seeking,
Your mind will just revert to equanimity.
The true condition of the mind
Is that it finds calmness beneficial and, by it, attains repose.
Do not disturb it, do not disrupt it
And harmony will naturally develop."
--Nei-yeh, trans. Harold D. Roth
The true condition of the mind is something we already possess -- all that is needed is to empty ourselves of the conditioned reflexes we've acquired being raised in the historical era in which we are born. This emptying process is undertaken in a meditative state in which all the various objects of thought are progressively withdrawn from attention, until we arrive at an open awareness that is not clouded by habitual thoughts, emotions and memories. This is not conceived of as something necessarily difficult: The mind and body naturally tend toward this empty state when all the external stimuli are withdrawn.
"There is a numinous [mind] naturally residing within;
One moment it goes, the next it comes,
And no one is able to conceive of it.
If you lose it you are inevitably disordered;
If you attain it you are inevitably well-ordered.
Diligently clean out its lodging place
And its vital essence will naturally arrive.
Still your attempts to reflect on it and control it.
Be reverent and diligent
And its vital essence will naturally stabilize.
Grasp it and don't let go
Then the eyes and ears won't overflow
And the mind will have nothing else to seek."
This "cleaning out its lodging place" is the emptying out process, a stilling of the conditioned mind so that the original mind might be fully experienced. As the above text demonstrates, it is not just our habit thoughts that need to be stilled but even our own imaginings of what the enlightened state is.
"The Way fills the entire world.
It is everywhere that people are,
But people are unable to understand this.
When you are released by this one word:
You reach up to the heavens above;
You stretch down to the earth below;
You pervade the nine regions.
What does it mean to be released by it?
The answer resides in the calmness of your mind.
When your mind is well-ordered, your senses are well-ordered.
When your mind is calm, your senses are calmed.
What makes them well-ordered is the mind;
What makes them calm is the mind.
By means of the mind you store the mind:
Within the mind there is yet another mind.
That mind within the mind: it is an awareness that precedes words."
Here we encounter what may be the original protocol for awakening upon which later Taoist practices were based. First, we are encouraged to make ourselves sensitive to the Way that fills the entire world. This leads us to the experience of being released from our strictly human perceptions by identifying with this one word, the Way, so that our own awareness suddenly fills up the entire world along with the Way. This release into a higher awareness is established through a profound calmness of mind that is mirrored in the body's calm. By reverting to this natural state of tranquility and then cultivating it through repetition, we experience the deeper awareness beneath the ordinary consciousness that we have come to think of as "mind."
It is at this point that the really remarkable insight emerges to point us toward the awakened state: The original mind is an awareness that exists before language. Now we see that the early Taoists concentrated on experiencing the all-at-once kind of spatial awareness that exists prior to the linear thinking-in-words, timebound, consciousness of daily life. Nearly a thousand years after the Nei-yeh was written, the Sixth Patriarch of Chan, Huineng, would be spontaneously enlightened upon hearing a similar teaching from the later Diamond Sutra: "Enliven your mind without producing a single thought." More than 500 years later, the great Zen teacher, Dogen, would further this teaching: "Think not-thinking."
Taoism is, for all its esoteric roots, a practical philosophy of life, one in which enlightenment is not seen as an end unto itself but, rather, a naturally occurring state of profound harmony with all things that manifests as the purest form of participation in life.
"Those who can transform even a single thing, call them 'numinous';
Those who can alter ever a single situation, call them 'wise.'
But to transform without expending vital energy; to alter without expending wisdom:
Only exemplary persons who hold fast to the One are able to do this.
Hold fast to the One; do not lose it,
And you will be able to master the myriad things.
Exemplary persons act upon things,
And are not acted upon by them,
Because they grasp the guiding principle of the One."
Having awakened to the enlightened state, the sage is one who returns to daily life while maintaining contact with that transcendent awareness. By holding fast to the one Way that fills the entire world, sages are spontaneously and un-self-consciously participating in life as instruments of the Way: like the Tao, they act upon things and are not acted upon by things. They are able to change things for the better without clinging to concepts like "being spiritual" or "being wise." They have grasped the Way of the One and returned to the natural state of uncontrived and unpremeditated benevolence.
As I hinted at in the beginning of this post, Taoism is a wide-ranging tradition with different forms of expression that have multiplied over the millennia. The material presented here is intended to point back to the original teachings of the Tao, in particular its practices of awakening individuals to their full potential. There is no better entry into those original teachings that Harold D. Roth's highly esteemed translation and exposition of the Nei-yeh in his book, Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism.
I had the very great pleasure of interviewing Dr. Roth on my radio show a while back (that file can be downloaded here).
Brief as this overview of the Way of Enlightenment is, it is my hope that it echoes the essential teachings in a way that both those familiar and unfamiliar with the Tao find useful.
I am deeply gratified that 'The Toltec I Ching' has been selected a Silver Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Book Awards. My deepest gratitude extends to my co-author, Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and our enlightened publishers, Larson Publications.
'The Toltec I Ching,' by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden, has been released by Larson Publications. It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams. Its subtitle, "64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World," hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.
Go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.
In this light, he describes xuan in the following manner: it “carries within it the embryo of the Original One, it forms and shapes the two Principles (Yin and Yang); it exhales and absorbs the great Genesis, it inspires and transforms the multitude of species, it makes constellations go round, it shaped the primordial Darkness, it guides the wonderful mainspring of the universe, it exhales the four seasons … if one adds to it, it does not increase. If one takes away from it, it does not grow less. If something is given to it, it is not increased in glory. If something is taken from it, it does not suffer.
The reason why people lose it is that they become attached through their desires to the outside world, thereby forgetting the jewel that resides within. As Ge put it, “The way of xuan is obtained within oneself, but is lost due to things outside oneself. Those who employ xuan are gods; those who forget it are merely [empty] vessels.”
Thanks again for extending this discussion toward further horizons.....
I'm back from my desert walkabout and trying to get my bearings after getting my bearings....
So, off the top of my head—
Ge Hong's equating of the terms The Mystery, Tao, and The One is telling. He follows in the ancient tradition already established in early Taoism, as documented in the book I reference in my article above (Original Tao, by Harold Roth). This is further illuminated by the tradition among later Taoists and Chanists to use the word Tao to refer to enlightenment. His language and concepts are mirrored to a remarkable degree in Original Tao and I can't recommend it strongly enough.
My reading of his ideas is that he followed the essential techniques of Taoist enlightenment practices and recommended them to his followers. However, because he lived during extremely difficult political times, he became determined to help establish some sense of political-spiritual order by reconciling Taoist and Confucian philosophies. As worthy as such an effort might be, it seems to me that it led him a couple erroneous conclusions.
(con't)
The first of these problematic conclusions regarded physical immortality. I believe, as I imply above, that he mistook the alchemical concept of spiritual immortality for a physical kind. His reasoning, that gold and cinnabar would confer such immortality because they themselves were imperishable, is on the face of it wrongly conceived: if such were a physical reality, then the fact that neither gold nor cinnabar are imperishable would refute the argument. That his ideas were strictly theoretical is likewise problematic, given that he makes it clear that he never had the resources to actually perform such alchemical operations.
It is my opinion that Ge Hong mistook the promise of spiritual immortality to be attained by enlightenment for a physical kind. The refutation of physical immortality as the quest of Taoist alchemy is fully attested in numerous works (The Secret of the Golden Flower; Vitality, Energy, Spirt; both by Thomas Cleary, for example). Questing for physical immortality displays an attachment to life that holds one back from taking that "step off a hundred-foot pole".
(con't)
Ge Hong wholeheartedly believed that anyone, through unrelenting effort and study, could obtain immortality. One does not have to be either rich or powerful to do so; in fact, wealth and position are harmful because they inhibit one from attaining the necessary moral and physical serenity.
Moreover, it is not up to the arbitrary decisions of deities to extend our lives – they are merely divine administrators who keep track of our sins and good deeds; consequently, sacrifices and prayers to them for this purpose are useless. Thus, whether one can obtain immortality is entirely based on his or her own diligence and determination.
It was precisely for those educated people who wanted and were willing to work towards obtaining immortality that Ge wrote his Inner Chapters. The overriding importance that he attached to obtaining eternal life is evident in that the inner, and thereby his most important, chapters of his magnum opus were dedicated to the topic. http://www.iep.utm.edu/gehong/
Ge Hong (Chinese: 葛洪; pinyin: Gě Hóng; Wade–Giles: Ko Hung, 283–343), courtesy name Zhichuan (稚川), was a minor southern official during the Jìn Dynasty (263-420) of China, best known for his interest in Daoism, alchemy, and techniques of longevity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge_Hong
Yet all is not,
when Mountain and stream melt away,
tornado's and earthquakes, cause no stir.
When tree cast no shadow,
when bird makes no sound
all atoms dissolve,
there is one.
Empty, yet lacking emptiness.
It is said, all seen, heard, tasted and felt, are of no value, and distract. See life and death, by not seeing. There is no life, there is no death, rot and decay is the consequence of the physical, embrace that which has no form...
The eye which beholds Beauty and Life, also beholds Decapitation and Death, yet the eye makes no distinction.
The same tongue which laughs, also screams.
Follow the Way, the path is paved with Dog excrement.
There is no end, there is no beginning.
A great Master once said, "I would not pluck a single hair from my head to save the world".
The emptiness is not the fruit,
yin and yang are not the root,
forget all you know,
all will be understood,
know much, and lose the Way,
forget the Tao, be one with nothing,
all things melt away,
the mirror cast no image.
~ The Dao of Yao Wen Yang ~
Great quote, so reflective of the Taoist mindset: it is the tendency to conceptualize and create morals out of hypotheticals that Taoists rail against, using a coded language to shock conventional thinking into reflecting on higher syntheses of apparent opposites.....
Outstanding! Great find!
Thanks as always,
William
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The source of nature is spirit.
Nature is not a random accident. It has meaning, significance, and purpose.
Certain aspects of nature are invisible.
Nature is a part of a greater whole, which is beyond time and space.
Nature's beauty has intrinsic value.
That which preserves the beauty and harmony of nature is good. That which destroys it is bad.
All animals, plants, and landscapes are sacred.
All creatures have an equal right to self-fulfillment.
The inner world is a part of nature.
We should celebrate the creation with song, dance, art, poetry, and stories.
Science is an indispensable tool for gaining knowledge about nature. Scientism (the belief that science is the ONLY source of wisdom) is, however, a dangerous and misguided philosophy.
So: I concur with your astute observations. An ancient Taoist was fond of saying that everything we know about spirit we learn by analog from nature. A sprig of green squeezing up through a crack in concrete speaks volumes, is itself a temple of spirit. Devastating tornados and earthquakes remind us that this is not a human universe, calling from us the awe, reverence, and humility with which we approach the creative-destructive power of the sacred. We are creatures of mystery, unknown even to our own selves. Our souls swim in a sea of mystery, trying to peer through the veil of our senses. We have not changed within despite the tens of thousands of years of change without.
At this leg of my journey it seems that everything speaks. That everything, mountains and clouds and rain and stars and all, is alive—is all made of the same original material as we and the animals and plants share. Clouds seem like the thoughts of the far sea. Trees seems to flow like slow-motion water. It seems like each thing is a burning bush, speaking in the omnipresent voice of the sacred. Every mountain is the sacred center of the world, every step falls on the center of the compass of time. I keep trying to hold still longer and listen better.
I post this now to turn around and go back out into the delirious courtship dance of the high desert springtime.
Best Regards,
William
Fly well...
MANGO_K
Your note finds me at a good time: I'm out in the high desert of Eastern Oregon, wandering around Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on my annual pilgrimage. It's a late winter here and the sandhill cranes are doing their courtship dance, pirouetting and leaping like the world's first ballerinas. A mink skims the edge of a beaver mound in this morning's rose light, hunting for breakfast in the eddies of the Sylvie River. A pair of trumpeter swans float among the reeds of Benson Pond, the great horned owl hoots from its high nest. Northern harriers skim the chaparral, trying to startle game into the open. The beaver carries another willow wand over to its den. Entire pastures are covered in blankets of snow geese. A 15-foot tall nest perches empty on the cliff face, waiting for the spring migration to bring the golden eagles home.
The wind whips and stings like a scorpion tail. Dry snow swirls against the rising sun, melts as soon as it touches down on the bleached sand. Thunderheads float over the afternoon mountains, dragging tendrils of rain across the high plateau like giant jellyfish pulling their long tentacles against unseen currents. The stars drift close enough to touch in the wan light of the crescent moon. The rhythm of life dances to the universal drumbeat of nature’s heart. What can I do but keep time?
A journey of a thousand miles, begins with the first step !
To those who wish to end the cycle of Birth and Death, and achieve what the Taoist call "Immortality"
Three pointing fingers !
1 ~ The Tao of Meditation, Way to Enlightenment.(Excellent discourse on the Forth Dimension)
By Jou, Tsung Hwa, Tai Chi Foundation Warwick, NY. 10990
2 ~ The Secret of The Golden Flower, A Chinese Book of Life.
By Richard Wilhelm, commentary by C. G. Jung. Translated into English by Cary F. Baynes.
Pub. by Causeway Books NY. NY.
3 ~ Taoist Yoga, Alchemy and Immortality.
By Lu K`uan Yu. Pub. by Rider & Co. London UK.
Also by Lu K`uan Yu, The Secrets of Chinese Meditation.(Excellent chapter on Taoist Meditation)
These Three Works are pointing fingers, they can assist you on the path, but can not walk the road for you, that you must do yourself !
To walk an ancient road, forever treading...
The tradition of Immortal Sisters - female Taoist adepts - is as old as Chinese myth and history. The writings and poems in this book demonstrate the accomplishments of six distinguished Taoist women from the 4Th. and 12Th century. The best known is Sun Bu-er, who passed into folklore as one of the famous Seven Immortals and whose character appears in countless popular novels of China.
The translations shed light on the spiritual methods used by these women and illustrate the prominence of the feminine in Taoism.
The book contributes insights into the Taoist traditions and points out the importance of women who transcended the influence of patriarchal society.
Shambhala Publications Inc. Boston & Shaftesbury.
Also by Thomas Cleary: Awakening to the Tao, The Art of War and The Tao of Leadership.
thank you for your informed comment. the sufi and sant mat teachers are an inspiration to all who take up their study. please consider that that aspect we are trying to recover has, as long taught, no name, since it is that which names. from one perspective, it's called the soul and, from another, the original mind. from a third, it is called essence and from a fourth, buddha nature. and so on. i would hope that those who share so much of the perennial truth not fall into the trap of disrespecting their common heritage.
however, if i am wrong in this, and there is only one way to experience the truth and only one way to describe it, then i am especially grateful to you for your compassionate reminder.
wishing you all the very best,
william
From the beginning there has been only one way to experience Soul (Truth) that has been imbeded within all beings by the creator. The way is Surat Shabda Yoga.
Surat = Soul Consciousness
Shabda = The original creative energy that informs all. Love. The essence of the Divine Sound Current.
Yoga = Union.
Surat Shabda Yoga is the "practice of merging soul into the Shabda Dhun; the ancient tradition of the Light and Sound Teachings taught by all true Masters."
Blessings
This practice allows sexual energy to be transmuted and not just conserved. It also refines and
spreads it throughout the body, revitalizing the whole body in mind and spirit. So the practice itself removes the negative side effects of sexual desire, which for most people appears as sexual frustration. Sexual frustration is simply blocked sexual energy.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28431500/Healing-Love-Through-the-Tao-Cultivating-Female-Sexual-Energy-Chia-M
Enzymes are present in foods in their natural state, but they're rapidly destroyed at temperatures above 116 degrees Fahrenheit. It's for this reason that a raw foods diet is so healthy and why increasing the amount of raw foods that you consume is especially important in this age of dead and denatured foods. When we chop up a salad, juice fruits and vegetables, and chew our foods well, we're releasing the enzymes contained within those foods which aid in their own digestion.
This saves a lot of our own limited supplies of Chi and enzymes from having to be used up to digest this food. As mentioned, all processes that occur within the body require enzymes to occur, but on a molecular and atomic level, all such chemical reactions require energy to take place... that's where something even more important comes into play. That something is the existence and understanding of Chi (our life force) and how it comes into play.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/023335_food_foods_enzymes.html#ixzz1J4s8yJY9
Keep 'em coming!
You're making this article a resource for all interested in the Taoist Lifeway.....
Much, Much, Appreciated!
William
"The Tao of Love and Sex: The Ancient Chinese Way to Ecstasy" By Jolan Chang, Dutton, N.Y. Jolan Chang explains how the ancient philosophy of Taoism can be applied to modern sex techniques.
Two thousand years ago, at a time when the Christian West was frantically repressing sexuality, the Chinese were enjoying an erotic life that fused the sensual and the spiritual, in which sexual guilt and sexual aberrations like sadism and masochism were all but absent. This bestselling book by a leading modern exponent of Taoism makes that erotic life available to all who seek it. With its emphasis on male restraint and female pleasure and its healing vision of sex as an expression of a deeper cosmic balance, The Tao of Love and Sex offers us nothing less than a new model of loving, at once exciting and serene, passionate and compassionate.
'They were engendered out of nothing, and came into existence of themselves.'
'Hence we say, there is a great Principle of Change, a great Origin, a great Beginning, a great Primordial Simplicity. In the great Change substance is not yet main est. In the great Origin lies the beginning of substance. In the great Beginning, lies the beginning of material form.
'After the separation of the Yin and the Yang, when classes of objects assume their forms.'
In the great Simplicity lies the beginning of essential qualities. When substance, form and essential qualities are still indistinguishably blended together it is called Chaos. Chaos means that all things are chaotically intermixed and not yet separated from one another. The purer and lighter elements, tending upwards, made the Heavens; the grosser and heavier elements, tending downwards, made the Earth.
Substance, harmoniously proportioned, became Man; and, Heaven and Earth containing thus a spiritual element, all things were evolved and produced.'
More wonderful quotes!
Don't know if you've seen it yet or not, but there is finally a modern beautifully rendered translation of "The Huainanzi" (2010), translators Major/Queen/Meyer/Roth. You might find it intoxicating.
Wm
It is the Sage's function to teach others and to influence them for good. It is the function of created things to conform to their proper nature. That being so, there are things in which Earth may excel, though they lie outside the scope of Heaven; matters in which the Sage has no concern, though they afford free play to others.
For it is clear that that which imparts and broods over life cannot form and support material bodies; that which forms and supports material bodies cannot teach and influence for good; one who teaches and influences for good cannot run counter to natural instincts; that which is fixed in suitable environment does not travel outside its own sphere.
Therefore the Way of Heaven and Earth will be either of the Yin or of the Yang; the teaching of the Sage will be either of altruism or of righteousness; the quality of created objects will be either soft or hard. All these conform to their proper nature and cannot depart from the province assigned to them.'