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After reading and reviewing some of Michael’s posts, I still have some peices of the puzzle missing.
With Michael saying that Heaven and Earth created Man, I can relate that to Hun and Po creating the individual heart shen for the same reason microcosmically in comparison of Original Spirit with Dao, and Dao creating Heaven and Earth then Man. I say this because I take the terminology of the Native Indians up here in Canada that the Creator is “The Great Spirit”.
The model that I am taking here of Original Spirit to Hun and Po to Heart Shen is like Dao to Heaven and Earth to Man. This seems correct to me but in this school of Daoist Alchemy, ie. the Five Interior Gods, I remain skeptical of the relation with Wuxing and Spirit.
The Hun, Po, Heart Shen relationship is like yin-yang-yuan. But this is kind of distorted with the Five Shen Theory. I know that you may speak to your organ intelligences, and I agree that the organs store the intelligence of the brain via xin/heart-mind. Because you can communicate with an organ intelligence, does it mean that it has spririt? This is a theory, and I am just attempting to see if anyone can validate it. Of course, five organs are wuxing within the body, but I don’t think that it is the shen of the organs that is wuxing.
This leads me to some of Nnonnth’s postings, of which I looked up and have found some interesting points by magician, Taylor Edwood of which I would like to insert here:
“So I decided at that point to visit mitochondria. Mitochondria talked in a low metallic voice and said we a lot. They said to summon them I should think of the color blue-green and explained that they were the light dancing in the cells. They explained that they helped the process of metabolism in cells and also the processing of environmental information that came to the cells and modified the genetics within as well as working with the neurotransmitters. This will bear investigation on my part, but I’m very intrigued. I’ve just looked up the information about mitochondria via wikiepedia and it seems the information was correct that the mitochondria gave me. So this will definitely bear more experimentation possibilities.
After visiting with mitochondria I decided to get in touch with the bacteria of my body. They told me when wanting to work with them that I should think of sunlight touching gold hair…It was interesting because the bacteria took the form of a young woman. She talked mainly about how important the interconnection of everything was…how my body was a universe for what was in it, and that everythign worked together to stay alive as well as keep me alive. I think really she was explaining how important interconnection and working together is overall.”
So, I take it that you can communicatw with any part of the body, so what makes Five Shen existent?
If we take another relationship between wuxing, we see the body-spirit relationship of heart-kidneys. Kidneys store zhi and are the storehouse of prenatal essence. This is inrelation to prenatal spirit or Original Spirit of the Heart. While the spleen house the postnatal essence and yi. The kidneys and spleen related to water and earth, are the jing aspect and the lungs and liver, are the metal and wood aspect are yin and yang to each other. So there we have Heaven Spirit (liver) and Earth Spirit (lungs) as yang in relation to Postnatal Jing (spleen) and Prenatal Jing (kidneys) as yin. The soul-jing or body-spirit relation.
There are so many schools of Daoism and each one different than the other. I am trying to unify a more correct theory. I have seen schools that emphasize the Hun and Po with Yuan Shen as more popular, and the Five Interior Gods school which emphasizes Five Shen, if there are really five?
So, which theory makes more sense? Is Heaven, Earth, and Man in relation to Hun, Po, and Heart? Hun and Po needing Heart to “command” with that new unique sense of free will to play out the War in Heaven that Michael is saying or what?
I hope this sparks up some good discussion to go deeper!
Fajin>>”The Hun, Po, Heart Shen relationship is like yin-yang-yuan”
From my understanding and practice, the kidney – heart relationship is yin and yang. Yuan jing, qi and shen arises from the relationship of those two.
Hi Singing Ocean,
The thing is, I disagree with kidney as having its individual spirit. In all the classics, it stores zhi, not shen. The heart is the only organ that stores spirit, both original spirit and postbirth spirit. Kidneys store yuan jing, not jingshen. The kidneys have zhi, not shen. I don’t know where the Five Interior Gods school got this knowledge from. I agree that the organs have a wuxing relationship, but they do not all have spirit. Heart has spirit. Lungs a liver have souls. Spleen and kidneys have jing.
The heart-kidneys relationship is yuan jing and yuan shen, not jingshen and yuan shen. Yuan qi arises from yuan jing. They all have vital organ intelligences and can be communicated, but that does not mean they all have spirit. The yin-yang-yuan relationship I speak of is the three souls of postbirth heart (personal heart shen), liver (hun), and lungs (po). The original jing and shen relationship is different, it is kidneys and heart.
Smiles,
Fajinhappy disagreements,
According to classical chinese medicine texts all of the vital organ shen have “de”, or a virtue quality.
The intelligence of the kidney is zhi, or will.
The intelligence of the heart is shen, or spirit.
The intelligence of the liver is hun, the evolutionary manifestation into spirit that wants to connect jing and shen with qi.
The intelligence of the lungs is po, the evolutionary spirit that wants to manifest into matter.
the intelligence of the spleen is yi, or intention, sound that comes from spirit.(based on “Nourishing destiny – the inner tradition of chinese medicine” by L. Jarrett)
I prefer to relate to five elements on all levels, and not compartmentalize them into jing only or shen only. Where do you draw your version of the cosmology from?
Singing Ocean,
That was wonderful, you’ve just proved my point. Intelligence of the kidney is zhi and intelligence of the spleen is yi. These are intelligences, not spirits. I relate to wuxing on the levels they are at. I see nothing that says that kidneys and spleen have spirit. Simply put:
heart – shen
kidneys – zhi
spleen – yi
liver – hun
lungs – poWhere do you see that kidneys and spleen have spirit? My view is that Dao is like a grand concsiousness and Yuan Shen is like an Individual Micro-Concsiousness. Dao to Heaven and Earth to Man to Myriad Things in Nature. So microcosmically speaking, Yuan Shen to Hun and Po to Postbirth Heart Shen, to Myriad things in the body. Does this not make sense?
I see that each one of the five organ intelligences occupies 1/5th of the brain. When we speak to it, we isolate it and program it for reality. I agree with you on this, but not the fact that spleen and kidneys have spirit. That’s where I disagree with the Five Interior Gods School of Daoism. This is very important to understand.
Regards,
FajinYou have proved what your point is to you, yes.
How can you say something has intelligence but does not have spirit, or has qi but does not have shen, or has jing but does not have shen? From a Daoist point of view, if something has physical form, it also has a formless aspect that it is simultaneously birthing from and returning to in each moment. How can we have a physical organ without a spiritual origin (in each moment, not a linear origin that is then disconnected), and intermediary waves that focus and process it?
For the sake of being accurate with terms I will explain what I meant by “Intelligence”. When I say that each organ has a particular virtue quality aspect of “de”, the term “de” usually refers to “original nature”, or Yuan Shen, which is what it sounds like you are saying resides only in the heart. But in this case, if all five shen came from the origin, wouldn’t they all have an aspect of that origin inherent in them? When I use the term De in reference to the organ virtue qualities, it is to say that each organ has a pure expression of its divided nature. So I would equate that pure expression as a virtue quality or shen aspect of each organ that then gives rise to the what particular phase in the process of the five elements it embodies. The De or Shen of each organ is what I mean when I say “Intelligence” of each organ.
In your view, if the hun and po represent the yin and yang aspects, and the heart is the yuan shen, how does the spleen function? The intent that directs the will? If that is the case, why is the po spirit between the yi and zhi in the creation cycle?
At any rate, the heart has a physical form so how can it be only Shen? There is jing in the heart to allow it to be in physical form.
On the subject of De, I also think it is more complete to say that Original Nature is yuan shen, yuan qi and yuan jing, not just yuan shen.
Hello Singing Ocean,
OK, I see what you mean by intelligence. But I still disagree with what you are saying.
>>From a Daoist point of view, if something has physical form, it also has a formless aspect that it is simultaneously birthing from and returning to in each moment. How can we have a physical organ without a spiritual origin (in each moment, not a linear origin that is then disconnected), and intermediary waves that focus and process it?<>But in this case, if all five shen came from the origin, wouldn’t they all have an aspect of that origin inherent in them?<>In your view, if the hun and po represent the yin and yang aspects, and the heart is the yuan shen, how does the spleen function? The intent that directs the will? If that is the case, why is the po spirit between the yi and zhi in the creation cycle<>At any rate, the heart has a physical form so how can it be only Shen? There is jing in the heart to allow it to be in physical form.<<
*You are basically saying that jing, qi, and shen all occupy the same space but vibrate at different speeds in physicality. I agree. However, in this situation the translation can become confusing.
Eg. The jing from kidneys, are hormones and jing occupying space, is matter. In this case, the heart, is simply atoms (matter) in vibration are jing. The jing from kidneys are hormones. The same confusion occurs with shen. Yuan shen resides in the heart, but by saying shen is occupying the same space everywhere, is not true. It is simply early heaven, or 4th density vibration, ie. 4th dimension. Even with the middle dantian related to qi gives meaning to breath. Breath is not everywhere, but qi is, which comes from breath. It too has form, otherwise why call it a dimension? Emptiness is formless.
What I am saying is that jing, qi, and shen are everywhere in the body, but that doesn't prove that the spleen and kidneys have their own INDIVIDUAL shen.
Smiles,
FajinThe english translation of shen, is spirit. But Singing Ocean says spirit occupies all space. I generally agree with him, but it’s just a mix of terms.
The upper dantian is the shen center but shen is everywhere, so how can this be? Well, our shen let’s us have a connection to early heaven, so we can say early heaven is shen in the sense of being everywhere in the body.
Just like middle dantian is the qi center, but qi is everywhere so how can this be possible too? Again, qi originates at middle dantian with breath and we have qi, the original breath.
The same goes for lower dantian. With kidney jing, our center of gravity is functional and we can move our physical body. It’s all related, but not exactly the same.
That’s when I try telling him that THIS does not prove that spleen and kidneys have shen. Well, of course they do but not as an individual spirit, but early heaven connection which is a higher vibration like spirit. So we tend to confuse the terms.
Smiles,
FajinYes, rocks do have spirit, the spirit of the collective consciousness of the earth element. Rocks do not have free will like humans though.
>>”What I am saying is that jing, qi, and shen are everywhere in the body, but that doesn’t prove that the spleen and kidneys have their own INDIVIDUAL shen.”
Do you mean that the spleen and kidneys do not have a binary soul structure like humans do? You have misinterpreted my earlier posts if that is what you thought I said.
The kidneys are a gateway for the spirit of the collective intelligence of the water element. When a human is able to cultivate and refine the spirits of all the collective intelligences of each element in their own body , they gain a higher level of free will.
>>”Lungs and liver don’t secrete hormones (jing) and so how do they have De?”
From my understanding, jing is a thick, slow vibrating form of energy that prints out the physical form, but is not physical. I do not equate jing with a physical substance like a hormone. Since Jing is an energetic frequency, it is not the same as the shen or virtue quality of each organ, but each organ has jing in order to manifest into physical form.
The liver does secrete hormones by the way:
“The liver synthesizes and secretes at least three important hormones:
Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1)
Angiotensinogen
Thrombopoietin”
-(http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/L/LiverHormones.html)Hi Singing Ocean,
You are fun to discuss with.
I am trying to say that spleen and kidneys operate in the shen frequency, as does everything. But that they do not have individual souls residing within them. The Five Interior Gods School says that they have a spirit residing in the kidneys and spleen. I agree that they vibrate on that frequency because early heaven is everywhere, but not that they have a soul residing within them if that makes things more clear. Also, you said:
“When a human is able to cultivate and refine the spirits of all the collective intelligences of each element in their own body , they gain a higher level of free will.”
Well I disagree with this. It should be more like this:
When a human is able to cultivate and refine the five vital organs in their own body, they gain a higher level of free will.
This is because the 5 organs won’t have negative emotions to overshadow the personality and the ego via personal heart shen won’t be binding the zhi of the kidneys. It allows virtues to radiate. Heart-kidney relationship. We have already discussed this before.
>>From my understanding, jing is a thick, slow vibrating form of energy that prints out the physical form, but is not physical. I do not equate jing with a physical substance like a hormone. Since Jing is an energetic frequency, it is not the same as the shen or virtue quality of each organ, but each organ has jing in order to manifest into physical form.
The liver does secrete hormones by the way<<
*The jing that is thick, slow vibrating is still hormones. Wether that is the slow moving blood or spinal fluid or whatever that is carrying them, they are hormones. Hormones are responsible for all physiological actions within the human body.
Qi is an energetic frequency, jing is a physical frequency – linear.
Yes, each organ does operate on the jing or linear frequency.
De does not have to pertain to shen. It relates to the physiological functioning of the organ. When you ejaculate too much, your zhi is weak. How does zhi relate to spirit then? Same with spleen when you injure your spleen, your thoughs and intent are scattered. The liver virtue is related to Hun souls because of the soul structure which contains those virtues embedded within the livers physiological makeup.
Everything in the body vibrates on a shen frequency, but that does not mean that there is a soul in every single space of the body. There are souls in the lungs, liver, and heart. The kidneys and spleen do not have them. That is where I disagree with Five Interior Gods School.
Kind regards,
FajinSoul has a structure as does spirit, they are practically the same thing. They have form, otherwise what’s with the term soul STRUCTURE. They vibrate at the same frequency.
Is my po different from your po? I know my experience of it is as well as my use is. Does your po have the potential to do different things then mine. I think we are working with the same potential. I do find it interesting the repeating pattern of working with opposites to find the third. You can also work With four to find the fifth, and eight to find the ninth. I mean in essence you still seems to be working with yin and yang wheather its shen/hun contrasted with po/zhi. From my understanding when the egg and the sperm come together they form what looks to be a toroid which creates a vacum in the center bringing in heaven and earth energy. This also seems to create the third. Alright I guess that was a side trac. My main piont is that we work with the five elements, it is part of the process that nature uses, we are just able through are free will to speed up the process as well as slow it down. We are apart of nature just as they are and if you get your budies working together as a team on the inside you can look out into the world and see them on the out side and say hey “hey was I not just working with you guys inside” and they will say “yeah know that you know how to work with us we can have fun outside to”. I do not see multiple spirits for fire, just one, with meany people using it for different things. The elements qualitys and virtues can be seen in all life. I hope I did not just repeat you guys.:)
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