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Nei YehFrom: bagua
Subject: General
Date/Time 2009-07-22 10:26:47
Remote IP: 76.174.127.139
MessageI read the Nei Yeh as a practical meditation manual, not a metaphorical treatise. I am not changing words, i am using the original chinese characters which I took time to research since I do not read chinese fluently. I think the original chinese words (jing, qi & shen) resonate more with Healing dao practitioners than "essence, breath and numinous", since those are the words that michael winn and mantak chia use in their practices.
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Ok, but the author of the book choose specific words for a reason.
Don't quote pages for me to read, I thought we are having a discussion of particular verses and I have just posted one for us to discuss, if there is another one you want to discuss then post it.
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Sorry, I cant agree with this. Roth discusses the verses in detail in the book, the pages I gave you are the analysis and comments on the first verse, so it connects directly. I believe his work is very valuable in understanding what the verses many mean.
Interesting point about the virtues being added to classical chinese medicine at a later point, I will have to look into that. At lest the writer of the nei yeh and dao de jing was aware of the virtues as they do come up in one of the verse, maybe we can discuss that one too.
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Sure, they often refer to virtues in a person, not necessarily related to specific organs.
From my work it appears the assigning of the virtues, spirits to the organs comes from Tao Hongjing, the organizer of San Ching Taoism, 453-536.
As a side note, its his book on Herbology that is the oldest unified work we have, in that book there is no connection of herbs to organs or channels. All this comes later but its presented as if it is 5,000 years old, a common thing in Chinese culture.
Reading verse one in a practical rather than metaphorical way, the idea of storing something implies that it must be gathered in some way, and considering that China was very centered around agriculture at that time (the five grains as mentioned above), don't you think that all of this points towards cultivation of shen?
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I view them in both ways.
The vital essence of all things:
It is this that brings them to life.
It generates the five grains below
And becomes the constellated stars above.
When flowing amid the heavens and the earth
We call it ghostly and numinous.
When stored within the chests of human beings,
We call them sages.
The five grain is referring to the Way/Tao creating all of life, heaven above, earth below and humanity. Five grains refers to earth below.
Sure we could read it in a metaphorical sense, but then all kinds of things could be extrapolated from it. I don't have the book with me right now, so to clarify, is the character for "chest" the character Zhong? if so, this could either equally point towards any of the vital organs or even the Zhong Mai, the core channel, or simply the "Center", if the concept of the Zhong Mai was not elucidated at that point.
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If this book is written in Warring states, the oldest book on Chinese medicine we have in Ma Wangdui texts, in them there are no Extra Channels, only 11-channels, no points, no acupuncture. So based on history i dont think it refers to Chong Mai. Chong Mai can mean movement, thoroughfare, which is moving Jing in to action. This verse is referring to holding or storing, not moving.
I like your point about the humans being between heaven and earth, and the idea that people finding the balance point in the midpoint between the two will help them to cultivate their shen. When you say that people become sages when they "realize their true nature" points to a more buddhist idea of sudden enlightenment or enlightenment through realization rather than cultivation implying that nothing need be done rather than realize the true nature...how is that accomplished, through mindfulness (really, I do want to know the method)? Again, this is a basic daoist technique (the inner smile), and the goal of alchemy is really to give substance to spirit, to "store the shen within the jing", and integrate the two as I see is mentioned in verse one. We do have all of these components all the time, but not the result of the integration of the two...I might have water and tea leaves at home but by heating the water and steeping the leaves for the desired time, I can create a great cup of tea rather than just drinking a cup of water and chewing on some crunchy leaves (which is great too but not the same).
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The texts does talk about basic ways to achieve it, its in the non verse areas.
bg
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