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CLARIFICATIONS on above:Life vs. Essemce. One vs. Many, Binary SoulFrom: Michael Winn
Subject: General
Date/Time 2007-10-25 07:04:01
Remote IP: 66.32.27.113
MessageFinally catching up after my travels and teaching wuji gong this weekend. It seems that qigong practice followed by meditation produces deeper results that intellectual discussion, but we also seem to need both to keep our "life" and "essence" in harmony.
1. That is the first clarification, on Cleary's translation.
Life = Ming, aka destiny in the world.
Essence = Xing, inner nature, aka spiritual destiny
2. Northern and Southern Schools are atttempts to simplify a whole range of practices. One Cloud probably left a Northern School order to seek his Way in the mountains of northern China. He was probably NOT out there teaching sexual practices to folks. It was assumed in his monastic tradition, at least the single cultivation practice (internal circulation of sexual energy).
The dual practice (couples having sex) was integrated by Mantak Chia from other Taoists. I support that because it is more relevant to modern adepts in the West - very few are living in caves/huts apart from sex/society.
3. The ongoing One vs. Many Debate
Just to clarify my previous position, I wasn't attacking Buddhist for choosing to meditate however they chose to - I was disagreeing with claims made by Max that led to the same as Taoist alchemical practice.
And I was pointing out the post-natal impossibility of any two different people having the exact same meditation or any life experience, even though they may be drawing their experiences from a common primordial ground.
The above discussion of choosing to dissolve into the One vs. choosing to reincarnate, etc. must be viewed more realistically in terms of level of Will achieved by an individual at the moment of physical death. And please note that MERGING into the One and DISSOLVING into the One are not the same process; merging I belives preserves the individual will, albeit with total integration and harmony with the collective.
Dissolving into the One: I doubt this is an act of will by the individual, more likely it is a higher level of collective self ABSORBING its post-natal individual projection back into its greater self because that individual self has ceased its conscious evolution or has no furtaeher mission, i.e. it lacks the integration/will/destiny to continue and so is automatically taken by into its immediate higher level source where in a sense it lives entirely through the creativity of the collective (oversoul) that has absorbed it.
4. My concern about Nan Huai Chin type of Buddhists (Nothingness is All you Need) is that they are a kind of Fundamentalist Buddhist who seem to be expressing their desire to obliterate the process of both the post-natal Self and the pre-natal self (soul). That this anti-self desire, if expressed deeply enough in the life, might limit the options available to them at death.
I cannot know this for sure, it just seems a likelihood. It's also possible at death they would suddenly experience the ongoing creative fullness of creation and choose to reverse their post-natal belief and achieve sufficient integration "from the corpse" to go on creating.
My other concern was that certain types of meditation practice might not address the binary nature of the soul, but simply choose to split it further through beliefs and practices that the "formless" or empty aspect of self was more real thanits form aspect. That by bypassing this tension in the binary soul, you don't resolve it, and may exacerate the tension.
But I think Harold Roth interview put it really clear: the Taoists belive in continuous creation, there is no absolute emptiness to be achieved, only greater depths of "de"/spiritual power to be expressed.
This is why I find Bagua's position on the One as being pre-existent and thus "already achieved" to be confusing the issue of post-natal practice/potential achievement.
The One is simply another name for the collective of creation, which apparently will endure no matter what we do. But the experience of each "cell" of the One changes the experience of the One. So One is also in process - we are part of that process.
I don't think Oneness should be confused with the notion of the futility of the individual self seeking to deepen the One's experience of itself. That implies the One is fixed, and thus somehow limited. Better to see individiual selves as reflections of the One, we hold the One inside of us and we mutually shape each other.
peace,
Michael
ps. I will get to other threads tomrorrow.
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