Home › Forum Online Discussion › General › Repost from Below: Kan and Li Formula’s: What is the Immortal Self
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October 19, 2007 at 1:07 am #25099IntelligenceParticipant
i think the real beauty of the kan and li formulas over all these different takes on the soul is that it is based on an energy field in the heart..
so my real question here is what are the dynamics of the soul.. Michael Winn says that these different fields rearrange from different people through different lifetimes and that what fuses stays organized throughout some sort of life death energy cycle..
BUT at the same time there is this Immortal Self which is supposed to already be inside of us.. but am i mistaken about the already part?
so my question is really, and this may be my fault, but is this immortal self supposed to be there from the beginning, just gathering what it can, or is it something you have to create in order for it to exist to begin with..
if it does exist from the beginning, then what is supposed to be happening with it at death, in the afterlife etc
??
October 19, 2007 at 2:08 am #25100baguaParticipantHi Intel:
You ask a very good and important question. These formulas and the commentary, the details, the explanations that are given as to what is Yuan Shen, Soul, Hun, Po, Immortality are mostly peoples intrepretations, their attempt to explain things. You do not see Lao Zi talk in these terms, which I do think is very important.
IMHO, there is that space in you that has and always will be eternal, its your true nature or in taoist terms yuan shen. All we need to do is turn our attention to it or in taoist terms use your Yi to focus on this aspect of yourself, not your yin, not your yang, but your Yuan. Eventually you realize this is your true nature, the yin and yang always comes and goes in its many varitations but you longer attach your self to it, you know it is not your true nature. You no longer give your Qi, Bloof and Jing to creations of the mind, dreams and fantasies of the future, hopes for some immortal being in the future.
The formulas have the possibility of allowing this realization to occur, as many traditions due, they also can allow for attachments to methods and looking for something outside oneself. This is a key, if you already are this eternal spirit there is no need to seek somewhere, look somewhere, built something, we just need to become aware of what already exists. I do believe if we read Tao Teh Ching this becomes clear. THese formulas have a subtle meaning, it gets one to be aware of yourself, pure awarness (consciousness, spirit, etc.) this is your true nature, its very simple but our desires to be special takes us from this space. What can be more special than creating an immortal body?
These ideas of what happens after death are just dreams and fantasizes and only take one away from the current moment, only in the current moment can we find this immortal aspect of our life that is the one thing that always exists. Qi Gong and Nei Gong put our Yi in this space, just focus on it, no more no less, seeking more or less takes one from it and unleashes an endless persuit of which the mind is incapable or realizing.
regards,
October 19, 2007 at 3:51 pm #25102IntelligenceParticipanthave you had this experience of going into that comfortable space where you are normally at during your sleep..
then drifting through and sensing other people and objects in the environment..
with the sensation that you can feel their hearts and souls and that your minds are all linked from within things..
if so, and the formulas are teaching this, then what do you think is going to survive thorugh death and where and how and what are the directions things will take…?
it’s a very deep feeling where you can go off into dreams and communicate with people.. things just pop right out and speak to you..
it is unmistakeable..
October 19, 2007 at 5:00 pm #25104baguaParticipantThere is no death of your true nature, so i dont exist within your model. It is my experience the formulas are taking someone who does not realize their true nature and provides many formulas or meditations to allow for that to occur, and provide a practice to retain it as one gives up past attachments to emotions, feelings, dreams and fantasies. Just my experience. Focus on that part of you that is always present, this is your yuan shen.
bagua
October 19, 2007 at 5:02 pm #25106NnonnthParticipant>>with the sensation that you can feel their hearts and souls and that your minds are all linked from within things..<<
… sorry, nothing much to say except how nice that sounds!
Not sure how it connects to the afterlife though, that's a whole other story because it's not taking place on the material earth really.
It sounds like you are experiencing how minds and hearts can join at the astral level, because you say 'from within', ie seeing underneath the ego to the person themselves. (An exercise in Bardon's book actually!)
I understand a bit more now Intelligence what you were saying before about, during the day this consciousness goes away and people become inane… it seems like when you have this experience and are trying to make sense of it, other people's thoughts must seem quite silly in an alienating way sometimes… but they have forgotten that consciousness, that's all it is.
j
October 20, 2007 at 3:33 am #25108singing oceanParticipant>>”the explanations that are given as to what is Yuan Shen, Soul, Hun, Po, Immortality are mostly peoples intrepretations, their attempt to explain things. You do not see Lao Zi talk in these terms, which I do think is very important… All we need to do is turn our attention to it or in taoist terms use your Yi to focus on this aspect of yourself, not your yin, not your yang, but your Yuan.”
???contradiction???
>>”These ideas of what happens after death are just dreams and fantasizes and only take one away from the current moment, only in the current moment can we find this immortal aspect of our life that is the one thing that always exists.”
Even Lao Tzu said “know the world by what is inside yourself”. In resonance with that, we know what happens after death by practicing now. Practice is only a process of realizing a deeper aspect of the present moment, and in fact the goal is to get stuck in that deeper aspect of the present moment, or to experience the process of being in it.
When you say “metyhods may get you stuck”, you are still using a different method: that of focusing on what you think is the yuan “state” of being. Even that is a process in itself. The “goal” is to experience the process in each moment, and methods are useful for that.
October 20, 2007 at 4:56 am #25110NnonnthParticipant… so important, someone has been feeding it immortality formula! Now it refuses to die! ๐ j
October 20, 2007 at 11:58 am #25112JernejParticipantmany individuals are afraid of 2500AC and the state after their death
by as the osho-kingpin might say, are you afraid of 1233AC, when most current incarnate homo sapienses were not born
so: if one is not afraid of time when one is not (i.e. 2500AC)
and one is afraid of time when one is not (e.g. 1233AC)
that are two lessons and together three lessons
in the timeline
or one needs scripturesOctober 20, 2007 at 12:39 pm #25114baguaParticipant>>”the explanations that are given as to what is Yuan Shen, Soul, Hun, Po, Immortality are mostly peoples intrepretations, their attempt to explain things. You do not see Lao Zi talk in these terms, which I do think is very important… All we need to do is turn our attention to it or in taoist terms use your Yi to focus on this aspect of yourself, not your yin, not your yang, but your Yuan.”
???contradiction???
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I dont see one. Just trying to use the terminology people here are trained it. Yuan just must essential nature, original nature, non-dual state. Yuan in living in the present momement.>>”These ideas of what happens after death are just dreams and fantasizes and only take one away from the current moment, only in the current moment can we find this immortal aspect of our life that is the one thing that always exists.”
Even Lao Tzu said “know the world by what is inside yourself”. In resonance with that, we know what happens after death by practicing now. Practice is only a process of realizing a deeper aspect of the present moment, and in fact the goal is to get stuck in that deeper aspect of the present moment, or to experience the process of being in it.
When you say “metyhods may get you stuck”, you are still using a different method: that of focusing on what you think is the yuan “state” of being. Even that is a process in itself. The “goal” is to experience the process in each moment, and methods are useful for that.
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Death is the future, not now. The minute you activate this thinking an endless process begins. You are stripping away the very nature of the purpose of how these formulas are promototed, which is to create an immortal body, immortal spirit. And if you dont begin this process you will be scattered into the collective after death, this is the promotion. SO as long as this is part of the teaching and practice is there then it cant be ignored.If you are saying that the goal of the Formulas is live in the moment, then we are in tune and maybe all these descriptions need to be edited.
bagua
October 20, 2007 at 2:22 pm #25116baguaParticipantYou will find amongst many taoists this is true.
October 20, 2007 at 4:53 pm #25118singing oceanParticipant>>”I dont see one. Just trying to use the terminology people here are trained it. Yuan just must essential nature, original nature, non-dual state. Yuan in living in the present momement.”
I was just pointing out that your use of terms is not clear, and “yuan” is used indiscriminately as a blanket term. Yuan what?
>>”Death is the future, not now.”
We practice according to the idea that death and rebirth happen constantly in each moment before the physical body comes into existence, while it is alive, and after it dissolves. Isn’t sleep similar to death, where you lose connection with the physical? But even that can be connected through lucid dreaming. Many people have had death experiences and returned, obviously this is a larger transition than sleep, but the similarity remains.
>>”You are stripping away the very nature of the purpose of how these formulas are promoted, which is to create an immortal body, immortal spirit.”
Immortality happens now, spirit is fused with jing and given substance. It is possible to see how some individuals don’t have to wait until death for their shen to scatter, they have already done it while alive! People can allow their personalities to become dysfunctional without trying to integrate themselves while still living. Kan and li provides an effective method to fuse the shen and jing in a balanced and harmonious way, but everyone is different so the balancing might take longer.
October 20, 2007 at 6:27 pm #25120dolphinParticipant(sorry, I posted this below before reading it’s replacement here. I’m responding to the ‘need for speed’ Bagua and Nnonnth mentioned and to my initial experiences with Lesser Kan and Li)
I took Kan and Li just this past summer, about 3 months ago. I would say that I took a relatively fast track to that point, doing the first level formula in about 18 months. I did dedicate quite a bit of time daily to the practice, so it didn’t feel like it was too fast. However, I also tend to want to rush things.
I would say that I came into the HT system ‘in crisis’. I had lost my way in the professional world and was generally feeling pretty lost. Finding qigong (Ken Cohen and John DuCane prior to HT) answered something deeeep inside. For as long as I can remember, I had an unspoken question that I had been seeking an answer to. Qigong is providing the means to find the answers to that question and to also ask more questions. I find it satisfying at a very deep level.
Lesser Kan and Li practice is taking a very different tack from my approach to the first formula. I find that this practice is very dense/complex. Moving into it and through it I want to go back and revisit certain of the other practices. In particular I am doing standing tree much more now than I did in the past, and the desire for it is coming from somewhere deep inside.
I’m finding the following hard to put into words, but doing Kan and Li has opened up a perspective on the previous practices and on myself – kind of like de-densifying or adding space between nodes of experience. I’m finding – very early stage – that I can move between the nodes in a certain way. If you find this description obtuse, I apologize.
So this is kind of a roundabout means to get back to part of the original thread. I guess for me right now, I would describe the ‘soul’ as a process or a perspective. An event, not a thing, nor a state. It’s the force that moves the water in the river and the perspective that we use, or that we are, to observe the river as it flows by.
-dolphin
October 20, 2007 at 7:06 pm #25122baguaParticipantWe have a very understandings of life.
Yuan by definition means original, our original nature is endless, is immortal, always has been and always will be.
We practice that death and life are one and not two, understanding this there is no birth and there is no death, there is just life. We are focusing on different things.
When you sleep you function, you breath, your heart beats, there is nothing you can do, nothing your little mind or ego can do to stop this. This “you”, that functions in sleep and functions when awake is your true self, knowing this and living from this awareness allows you know you are eternal.
You can focus on the transitions and analyze them step by step, tao is about focusing on the terrain allowing this all to exist and enjoying the ebb and flow of transitions, never mistaking the ebb and flow for our true nature, that which exists at all times.
Immortality doesn’t happen, as if there is a beginning or end or at some time you are or are not immortal, we are part of eternal life, creator and creation are one, formulas should bring one to this realization. I from the smile to heaven and earth, in my experience they do that, the story telling along the way gets some people chasing all kinds of stuff.
There is no intergrating, no fusing, only not attaching to the false shen, the world of beliefs, fantasy, things that come and go. The Tao saying “Know the offspring but stay with the mother” is a good way to express it. Know your true nature and enjoy the endelss ebb flow of life.
regards,
baguaOctober 21, 2007 at 4:18 am #25124singing oceanParticipant>>”Yuan by definition means original, our original nature is endless, is immortal, always has been and always will be.”
This brings us back to the question of whether our individuated personalities dissolve in to “original oneness” after death or maintain a symbiosis that is the result of cultivating while in a physical form (fusing shen with jing).
>>”We practice that death and life are one and not two, understanding this there is no birth and there is no death, there is just life.”
Collective consciousness cannot be killed and is essentially eternal. The difference between “death and life” is that while “alive” we are in a physical form, and after death, we may or may not have fused a certain amount of jing with spirit to give it substance.
>>”When you sleep you function, you breath, your heart beats, there is nothing you can do, nothing your little mind or ego can do to stop this. This “you”, that functions in sleep and functions when awake is your true self, knowing this and living from this awareness allows you know you are eternal.”
Yes, but what happens to your personality when you sleep? It is true that the higher self is always there, but are you able to have your individuated consciousness integrated while in sleep or death, or is it dissolved?
>>”You can focus on the transitions and analyze them step by step, tao is about focusing on the terrain allowing this all to exist and enjoying the ebb and flow of transitions, never mistaking the ebb and flow for our true nature, that which exists at all times.”
True that the higher self is always there, this should be self evident, but what about the INDIVIDUATED personality??? whether it dissolves or not is the question at hand.
>>”Immortality doesn’t happen, as if there is a beginning or end or at some time you are or are not immortal, we are part of eternal life, creator and creation are one, formulas should bring one to this realization.”
See point above (dissolution of individuality?) AGAIN.
>>”There is no integrating, no fusing, only not attaching to the false shen, the world of beliefs, fantasy, things that come and go. The Tao saying “Know the offspring but stay with the mother” is a good way to express it. Know your true nature and enjoy the endelss ebb flow of life.”
A very buddhist and christian viewpoint (in my opinion), as dissolution and giving up your autonomy is the goal there. Yet even contained in this quote is the simultaneous acceptance of both the individuated and original self, that both are balanced and harmonized.
Why is it that all alchemists after Lao Tzu are dissed and considered “impure” and not from the “ancient roots” of “original daoism”? Maybe read the book “original Tao” that translates and discusses the Nei Yeh by Harold Roth? it has many alchemical references, and “methods” in it, and the text is said the predate the DDJ (if you want or need a historical validation). Anyway, practice is the best validation.
Incidentally, the different influences and innovations (including western alchemy) in michaels work are what I believe validates it. How can you know that there was not much more of an alchemical tradition at the time of Lao Tzu, but was passed on by aural transmission? Would they write their secrets in a widely published text at the time, also considering that other practices like martial arts were often kept secret until a very recent time?
October 21, 2007 at 4:43 am #25126DogParticipantMost of the tools I find mainly help create a good foundation, a healthy post natal. So if you just stay with the fundamentals you still get great health which is priceless. This does not mean Kan & Li might not come knocking on your door. For me the Yuan is not a constant state nor is ones imortality. The interaction of post natal and pre and the interaction of Yuan jing, chi, Shen all create an evolving nature. The Yuan I feel to be part of that nature but there is also yin and yang. Now there is an infusus on Yuan because it is a wonderful simple way to harmonize so it is our uber tool for healing. Now there is skill involved with intereacting with yuan as any one that has worked at that level of manifestation will tell you. So the process of playing with it has evolved. I feel it is best to be open to working on what ever level calls you, the level of three, five, or ten thousand things. Evreything has its time and place, and the only constant is change.
Chi in I am out. -
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