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From what Bagua told me, One Cloud DID teach emptiness. From what I know of Mantak, he DOES NOT teach emptiness. So yes, I know that.
Max,
your example of the results of alchemy would make more sense if the person was in a boat in the river. The person would either drift with the river not using the paddle, passively allowing it to tke its course, or using intention and action to accelerate their journey, the person could use the paddle to go up or down or wherever they want, and reach their destination more quickly.
we will see that using intention to harmonize with the neutral space in the self is an effective method of integrating with the dao.
We never did get bagua to elucidate on what his contact said about just HOW One Cloud used emptiness for cultivation, or what he did to cultivate it. The word emptiness (kong, xu or wu) could be a synonym for the neutral space, which is a result of alchemical practice, and could also mean a formless state. The function and context would be useful to know here.
Hi Fajin:
You bring up lots of things, so I will just focus on a few, otherwise the posts just go on and on and loose any focus.
Fajin
I want to clear up what shaping is. You have the wrong idea about shaping, Chan does not shape. Let me explain by starting off with a quote by Shou-Yu Liang in the Tantric Buddhism section of the book, Qigong Empowerment:“There are many visualization methods which cover a very broad area. Visualization techniques are not visualizing for the sake of visualizaing. Visualization is used to reach a state of Void in thought, to enter a meditative state, and attain the union of the human and the cosmos. When visualizing, one condenses one’s thoughts, by concentrating on one visualization to eliminate all other thoughts.”
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This quote confirms what I have always said, the visualization is really focusing the mind on oneness.Tantric Buddhism, like Daoism, uses visualizations to reach Xu, the union of human and cosmos. They are not empty visualzations and do have an effect. Visualizations imply shaping, Chan does not. Eg. When you practice Dumo, you visualize a character at the navel center, red in colour, and flickering like a stove. Don’t tell me this is empty because it has an effect on the body.
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Chan has following the breath, this is the same. Chan has mantras this does the same. it just does not follow the form of tao alchemy, which has many variations, some detailed like chia and michael created, some much more empty mind methods, like I Chuan and many others.From my research so many tao masters do healing sounds withouth the negative and postive emotions like healing tao, which it would be good to know if they created them.
Tibetan Buddhists are able to sleep in snow because they produce internal heat. The same goes when you use pearls, virgin children, animals, water, etc. Each is a shape and has an effect on the body. Chan does not have these shapes and does not produce a certain, DESIRED, SPECIFIC, effect.
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Chan is about realizing your true nature, all these things you mention may never bring you to that place. As I have mentioned, where are all the living tao immortals that got there doing these formulas, now I know many of the healing tao practioners with over 20-years exeperience, so I have direct knowledge of who is out there. my point is all of this is very indiviual, doing the formulas may or may not get to spiritual enlightment, it may bring other health benefits which is great.I agree that the conversion of jing-qi-shen-xu/wu happens naturally and by simply observing, you accelerate that translation. But it does not go how you want it to go because there are no wants, because there is no self. Visualizations allow you to do what you want, that is why I say it gives you free will – there is self. When you observe ONLY, you are like the sun or moon watching down on everything, just part of the collective. That is not what you are designed for. You say we are complete. So why not use that aspect of ourselves, the ego-self. Chan does not take advantage of that, it wants to eliminate the ego-self. There is no free will in that.
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You are not doing what you want, you are doing what someone told you to, following someones path/method, you are following, both others and what already exists.Chan does not want to eliminate Ego, it sees it for what it is. if you keep saying this then we cant talk anynmore, its a waste of time. Ego is thinking mind, influenced by many things, when we see it for what it is, its still exists but we are not attached to it as our identity.
Eventually, Ego/intellect will follow our direct experience of our true nature, you are trying to leap frog it. Experience drives thinking mind in this case.
There is no such thing as being only the collective, we are individual and collective at the same time, this is one realization.
Lately, I have been practicing some emptiness methods like following my breath and listening to sounds, etc. I think they are great, but alone, there is no free will. Let’s look at the origin of Chan and Buddhism althogether – Hinduism.
In Ashtanga Yoga’s 8 Fold Path, samadhi is there. This is Chan. But Yoga includes other things too. The main support for it is about raising the Kundalini to attain super-conconsiousness. As you go through the chakras you open altered states of concsiousness. Yoga uses samadhi, pranayama, asanas, etc. to meet this goal. Buddha took this from Hinduism and uses samadhi only as a goal for enlightenment. That’s not the original intent in Yoga, it is a science.
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I think its not wise for us to think we know what the buddha thought.
Try to meet a Chan/Zen master and then lets chat about it, it will be fun.My point is that all paths are built on somekind of knowledge. Knowing just a simple technqiue like following the breath does not bring immortality. Why would Daoists, Yogis, Tantric practitioners, Egyptian, etc. have all this knowledge if all they needed was just follow the breath and they would bring balance. Don’t you think there is something more to it?
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We are not creating immortality, we are realizing who we are, which is eternal spirit. If one does not beleive they are eternal, then they need methods to help them realize this, some need complex methods, some need basic, thats life.bagua
We never did get bagua to elucidate on what his contact said about just HOW One Cloud use emptiness for cultivation, or what he did to cultivate it. The word emptiness (kong, xu or wu) could be a synonym for the neutral space, which is a result of alchemical practice, and could also mean a formless state. The function and context would be useful to know here.
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HT people did not create “Neutral Space” or “Yuan” or “Center”, but it feels that way on this forum. Emptiness is all over ht practices, when you do your kan and li, run through all the formulas, than just sit and do nothing, this is one “empty” practice. Standing in I Chuan style, or just standing is this. Doing Qi Gong forms with this mind.awareness is empty mind practice.I think what is of value, is to find what HT people added to whatever One Cloud taught, there is so much that may have been recently created, so much that has been taken from other teachers with no references to the teachers.
And I find no more value discussing what “Emptiness” means, we just go round and round, so its best to move on.
bagua
How do you know chia studied with One cloud? How do you know what One Cloud taught? Almost everything you have learned in the system is basically hearsay.
If you go to the roots of tao, you beleive in ancestral life, that all your problems are from curse of the ancestors, this is indigenous china and taoism, What you talk about is a collection of many views, all influencing each other.
Go read Spiritual Work Book by Master Ni, look how he creates energy image above his head, this is the pearl going out. If you want to look for authentic or atleast a Chinese taoist, he has more credibility than chia or michael.
i suggest you do not assume why chia may have done something or not.
bagua
Check out Emie Chan Tao, you might find it interesting.
From my understanding, the sitting and observing part of the kan and li practices is the “yin phase”, and opposed to the yang part of activating the formulas; it is the phase where whatever has been activated is allowed to complete itself.
Bagua, I have learned alchemy from monks in daoist monasteries in china, interestingly, their formulas are very similar to One Clouds, with some difference in the dan tien used to focus, and some other details. I don’t think anyone is making this stuff up, although refinements have been added. Michael has studied with many daoist masters both in china and in the US.
If you go into the roots of human spirituality in indigenous cultures, much of it is based on rituals surrounding the copulation of heaven and earth related to agriculture, and spiritual metaphors used in metallurgy (alchemy). The ancestors do play an important part, but their role varies widely according to what they achieved spiritually during their lifetime.
As you say, there are many variations, many, and there are similarities and variations, this is my point.
One can extract out and forget everthing else, but it does not mean everything else did not exist, in the shang dynasty, curse of the ancestors was the culture’s cause of illness and disease and catastrophes. The development of natural school did not exist at this time, alchemist could not have had these type of formulas at this time, yin-yang, five phases had not evolved yet, later this occurred.
To give the impression they existed is misleading.
Even things like healing sounds are practiced with more of an “empty” practice than healing tao method, more tao masters do them that way than ht way.
My feeling is the alchemy was much less detailed than ht presents, no so rigid, step by step, sort of mechanical, but much more relaxed and more empty mind practice. HT is trying to explain every detail, every aspect of creation with cosmology, something even Lao Zi knew could not be done.
bagua
What are your sources on Shang history? How do you know the natural schools, the five phases or yin-yang did not exist at the time? How do you know that more spiritual knowledge was not in the hands of shaman lineages such as those similar to King Yu, possibly outside the circles of royalty?
To give the impression they did not exist may be underestimating indigenous knowledge, and basing your view only on written history that may not be comprehensive enough to include all the historical aspects of cosmology and spirituality.
Most ancient knowledge was passed on orally to a select group of initiates in strict secrecy, as were the alchemy formulas through seclusion schools. You may see the HTU alchemy system as being rigid, but I think that may be your own projection, because it is constantly in flow and change. I asked michael about writing down the sequence of steps in the formulas, and he said it was not a good idea because there are many varying details that achieve the same result. I think that is why he presents so many versions in his workshops.
On another topic, do you know if Fu Wei Zhong’s Wujigong system is the same as that of Zhu Hui?
I think it is best not to presume anything about ancient history, especially about what they did not know. Look at the Shu culture artifacts that were found at Sanxingdui, they are at least contemporary with or predate the Shang, have extremely sophisticated metalworking skills in bronze and gold, and almost no written records describing their culture, what the artifacts were used for or represent.
If they did not know about the five elements or yin-yang in ancient china, they definitely knew about the alchemy of metallurgy. Do you think they also had rituals or spiritual practices linked to these? More than likely.
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