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Re:Qestion on harassment. & WHAT IS TRUE SITTING IN EMPTINESS?From: Michael Winn
Subject: General
Date/Time 2005-04-07 10:56:19
Remote IP: 66.32.126.170
Message I am going to leave this posting up, even though Max has ben banned from the site for preaching, through his actions, the Way of Suppressed Sex and Anger (Pornography). His posting serves as a useful teaching vehicle.
And I am happy if by leaving it up, Max gets a few more merits in his recruitment campaign for Buddha by calling me a liar. I am not sure what my lie, or intention to decieve was, so I am not really getting any benefit from the name-calling.
I absolutely agree with most of what is said in the sutra cited above, about relying on one's experience, that is the essence of taoist spiritual science.
Of course I take exception wth the judgemental conclusion near the end that this attribute is unique to Buddhism . Its a very clever mental sophistry - elevating the teaching by pretending to give to people a freedom that they always had:
"See for yourselves whether there is any other religious teacher in the world who has given this highest freedom to his disciples and audiences!"
I say, why even pretend to give what cannot truly be taken away?
Maybe folks back then were still into the master-chela type mental slavery, but most people on the path of Tao are not. So no big revelation here.
But I am a bit confused. Why does Bill Bodri rely so heavily on saying repeatedly, "Well, Nan is the most enlightened teacher around,and if he says it, it must be true. And that is all you need to knw about that issue. That is why youdon't need to do qigong or yoga, or anything besides Emptiness Meditation." Is that telling people to rely on their own experience?
My comments, all based on MY EXPERIENCE, but that have so apparently enraged Max were in response to false conclusions that nan and Bodri published in their book How to Measure Spiritual Realization.
Its no use to hide behind some sutra if you really believe differently and publish that. Actions speak louder than words. The obvious fact is that Nan and Bodri's book doesn't follow their own teaching of this sutra, but is instead filled with hidden judgements about what people WILL experience, extrapolated out way beyond their personal experience.
If Bodri had just said, look, I tried doing qigong, and had these problems, and found myself trapped in stupor of chi, or didn't know how to refine it into the pre-natal or primordial level so I felt stuck, or whatever, that is fine. That is sharing. But instead he, using Nan as authority, makes claims of omniscience, that qigong and taoist alchemy are dangerous for everyone, that the progress of good health or their kind of realization of immortality is illusory for everyone because it doesn't meet up with their dharmic definition of Emptiness Only.
This is really a confession that Nan tried to go that route and failed, and Bodri is just mouthing what his teacher tells hiim - NOT based on EXPERIENCE at all. And I posted the 3500 scientific studies showing the real health benefits of qigong,the doubling of lifespan, about which Max and Plato shut up completely.
Isn't that EXPERIENCE? Doesn't the sutra tell you to honor people's right to their own EXPERIENCE? Are they honoring other's right to EXPERIENCE? No. They are judging it, and ludicrously telling them that the benefits are not real. Because until you belieev in Empty Mind, even your experience of good health and chronic illness going away with qigong is illusory.
The ironies grow even more heavy. Nan borrows heavily from the Taoists, saying the orbit will happen naturally, and all the pathways of the eight channels will open.And listen to Plato exclaiming how his Yang chi is arising within the cauldron - another statement that the pathways mapped out by Taoist alchemists over the millenia will open naturally. That's fine as far as it goes- the Taoists are all in favor of natural unfoldment, the alchemists just figured out ways to speed the process up. Neither I, nor they are not "inventing" anything new, just imitating Nature, the Great Alchemist.
"Sitting in Stillness", the hallmark of zen practice, is considered by Taoist alchemists to be a preliminary method, of clearing the post natal mind before engaging in deeper levels with the lifeforce.
You can read this in the exegesis of the most famous text on this practice by Livia Kohn, in one of her early books called Seven Steps to the Tao. (Now out of print I believe). She analyses the entire main famous text about the practice of "Sitting in Oblivion", and it says clearly that it is preliminary to higher neidan practice.
The simple reality, as I have explained previously, is that if you do absolutely nothing your life will unfold at the pace of all post natal life. Qigong and Alchemical methods accelerate the process - but need to be done in proper sequence, or you will be held back by the life force until you are ready.
But there is another point that Nan is sliding past: the Buddha didn't teach the orbit or the eight extraordinary vessels or about yang chi arising in the cauldron or all the other Taoist benefits he is claiming to Empty Miind Only.
Tantric sciences and the notion of chakras within the body didn't arrive or re-emerge from the collective memory in India until a thousand years after Buddha lived - in the 5th to 7th centuries AD. I know, because I have sat at conferences with the best tantric scholars in the country. We need the scholars to keep the inflated claims of metaphysicians honest. The truth is, no one knows what Buddha said, as everything was written down a hundred years later.....so no use getting lathered up and posting porn because someone has disagreed with the probable MISAPPLICATION of the writings of one of his disciples.
(By the same count, there are arrays of Daoist scholars in the west who know far more about Taoist texts and history than Nan, who clearly has demonstrated his knowledge of Taoism is superficial, and that is reflected by his reputation in China. But guru-yoga types have difficulty allowing for the possible experience that their teacher is fallible.
So Nan is playng a double game - trying to claim the benefits of Taoist practice, but pretending he is a pure original Pali Budhist which didn't have chakras or inner body channels. And at the same time that he knows more about Tao than the modern Taoists from whom he briefly learned Tao.
I have no doubt that "Sitting in Emptiness" is a fine Taoist inspired meditation that will accelerate natural energetic processes. It is a way of dissolving the influence or fixed patterns of the shen. You empty them out,
so they can't play their old monkey mind patterns out. It s a very useful TECHNIQUE.
The Inner Smile is a heart centered version of that dissolving process. If you listen to my CD on it, after you move through all biological systems and the five vital organ spirits, the blood, bones, and skin, you dissolve the sense of their physicality and shift into non-physical space. And rest there, smiling to the next level of subtle self - your energy body - that sits in that apparently "empty" space.
And eventually, with iproper training, you will move beyond the vehicle of the Energy body into the spirit body. And the spirit body functions on inner sound frequencies, something I haven't seen mentioned by Nan. Which makes me VERY suspicioius of his onmiscience about all spiritual practice.
There are many reasons I prefer the inner smile instead of "sitting in emptiness" as the preliminary practice. I believe it was evolved by later Taoist alchemists over simple emptying, because of its many wonderful qualities:
1. It keeps the meditator more heart-centered.
This becomes increasinglyimportant as the adept progresses to ealize their role as mediator between Heaven and Earth.
2. It actively embraces all the dysfunctional shen and one's pain and suffering before dissolving it back into neutral. That's a bit more loving than telling the pain that you aren't real, you are empty, go away. For that reason, I feel its more integrative long term. But if emptying is the only thing that works, no opposition from me.
3. Most Westerners will consciously or unconsicously always be in resistance to the very notion of emptiness. This is the language problem I described elsewhere. I feel that the Inner Smile does it better by focusing on unconditional openness to the original chi, or to the inner nature of body, self and others. Neutral chi field allows for more accurate and truthful intention than continouous empty chi field.
4. Emptiness taken as a metaphysic, instead of a method, can lead to psychological feelings of depression in weterners. I have seen this in my clients.
5. Sitting in Emptiness was evolved by meditators living in ancient times, i.e. much closer to Nature and natural cycles. So when you emptied yourself, Nature would fill the vacuum, and things opened up quickly inside your body.
But modern people live in cities filled with craziness and false fields of chi and negative thought forms. So there is a danger of that negativity rushing in as you empty yourself. That may be one benefit of Zendo focus on group meditation, and setting a strong protective field in which to let go. Tao alchemy offers sophisticated ways to create that protected field energetically. One is by fusing everyithing back to the center.
I became acutely aware of this problem of environment affecting meditation when a western vipassana meditator came to me. He had spent 9 years in a Thai monastery having wonderful meditations simply letting go and watching within. He moved back to Boston, and doing the same practice, began having severe crippling headaches. He came to me for advice. I told him he was merely witnessing what was present within the chi field of a modern city. I suggested he use intention and begin flowing his awareness and breath in the orbit. It immediately balanced him out and solved the problem.
Sure, you could say he didin't know how to empty himself of the city's bad chi, that he was a poor victim of Semblance Dharma, because he didn't know Nan's superior method that works for everyone. That is quibbling abouit methodology. Whatever works best in short run is often needed, and if the pattern, like the orbit, also will serve in the long run even better. If someone wants continuous emptiness from the life force and can get it, that's fine too. Its not what I want, or most people want.
5. For those who have trouble , i.e. deeply disturbed shen, I suggest they drop all techniques until the danger of false yang chi subsides or becomes manageable. This is where sitting in stilness practice is best. But sitting in stillness and doing alchemical practices are not mutually exclusive. It is all a questioin of timing, as with everything in alchemy.
6. If Max or Plato or Nan or Bodri disagrees with what I have to say,
I am not going to send you degrading porn pics or attack your site like a group of Zen Nazis or KKK Buddhists. Or disturb posters and imitate others falsely.
If you are really upset, and need to harass some one as your method of emptying out sick chi, Just call me and rant, or send me an email. If its halfway intelligible, I will reply.
love, chi, blessings on your journey,
Michael
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