Selected Taoist cultivation classics and philosophy - All belong to the 1st Art Shan (山) or
Mountain in Chinese Metaphysics, called Wu Shu (五 术) or the Five Arts.
Taoism is a philosophical and spiritual tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao. In Taoism, the Tao is the source, pattern and substance of everything that exists. Taoism teaches about the various disciplines for achieving "perfection" by becoming one with the unplanned rhythms of the All, called "the Way" or "Tao". Taoist ethics vary depending on the particular school, but in general tend to emphasize wu wei (action without intention), "naturalness", simplicity and spontaneity.
1. Surrender. If we trust and surrender to the Life Force (Chi or Qi Field), the Life Force will flow into our body-mind. The Life Force supports us to effortlessly unfold who we truly are. Surrender is the prerequisite to expressing the highest level of our individual free will and creativity.The central challenge our ordinary ego-personality (heart-mind or ‘xin’ in Chinese) faces is the separation, fragmentation and dispersion of our underlying soul essence. Cloudy and reactive emotions, poor sexual habits, bad diet, shallow breathing, self-judgments, negative thinking and rejection of the spiritual nature of our physical body results in struggle, disease, suffering, and unhappy feeling of incompletion in life. Our resistance to life is what kills us. Self-cultivation teaches us to let go of our resistance to the Life Force.
2. Harmony. The Life Force is about Process. It is made of three streams of vast flowing consciousness or chi that harmonize all life: negative-receptive-female (Yin), positive-creative-male (Yang), and neutral-stabilizing-primordial (Yuan). This chi field is all-penetrating, yet remains neutral or paradoxically still even as it moves. Likewise, our soul rests in stillness while the Life Force moves in Yin-Yang and Five Phase (element) cycles through our essence.These flowing cycles/seasons offer a simple and perfect mirroring between our changing inner thoughts, feelings, perceptions and the outer action of Nature. Taoist qigong is the Process of communicating with the Life Force. Qigong trains us to speak the language of subtle energy or chi. We learn practical ways to harmonize the three currents of chi flowing amongst our self, our community, and Nature.
3. Simplicity. On the outside, life is very complex. On the inside, it is very simple. The Inner Smile is the Tao path of simplicity. It’s simple when you open the heart of your soul to unconditionally accept first your own body-mind. Second phase is to accept everything ‘Other’ as part of a unified, flowing essence of the Life Force. The Inner Smile is the simplest way to keep your path heart-centered. This simple, continuous act of acceptance ends all separation and loneliness, causing a soul peace to arise within our personality. Our path in each moment is to allow our smiling presence to embrace life’s wonderful complexity. It is this simple foundation of smiling, unconditional acceptance that allows all spiritual qualities such as love, kindness, compassion and forgiveness to unfold spontaneously.
4. Grounding. Taoist qigong & meditation fuse our ego into a strong, grounded, integrated whole. Qigong allows our heart-mind and physical body to achieve optimum health. Meditation merges our personality and body with our soul, or ‘ling’. This ‘whole-body enlightenment’ can be achieved while living an ordinary life in a physical body. Being centered in life means being grounded, physically and spiritually.
5. Integrity. Qigong (chi kung) movement exercises and meditation (neigong or nei kung) are two main pillars of Tao self-cultivation. They empower a third pillar – the expression of personal integrity or innate spiritual virtue (‘de’) in daily life. Study of the I Ching, feng shui, Chinese medicine, sexual energy cultivation, and self-expression through creative arts, complete the eight pillars of our personal Tao or ‘Way’. Together these eight offer us practical skills to grow the central ninth pillar, and realize our soul highest destiny, our integration with the Great Tao.
6. Sexual Sagehood. Our volatile male-female sexuality is reflected in the polar split between the two halves of our soul, the Heaven-formless spirit and Earth-form sexually embodied aspect. But sex is our soul’s secret alchemical elixir. If we know how to tap our sexual volatility, we can quickly transform spiritually. Taoist sexual practice with a partner and solo meditative inner sexual alchemy both use our tangible sexual essence to ‘capture’ and crystallize the invisible essence of our spirit. This union of our sexual and spiritual selves births a ‘third self’, an androgynous, bi-sexual Inner Sage that manifests our immortal non-dual Original Nature. Our Inner Sage is able to embody non-dual energy (yuan chi) while present in a sexually polarized male or female body and simultaneously express our unique individual will.
7. Transformation. The core Taoist spiritual practice is Internal Alchemy (neidan gong). Alchemy is transformation, the process of speeding up internal change. Both science and art, this meditative process offers a heart-centered systematic method to transform the apparent spirit-matter split within a single lifetime.Inside every human being lives a mystical trinity. In the West this trinity might be called body-mind-spirit, but their meaning is vague. In Taoism, the trinity is jing-chii-shen, with very precise meaning. Alchemical meditation speeds up the transformations between sexual essence (‘jing’), subtle breath (‘chi’), and intelligence-spirit (‘shen’). The three are really the same, but vibrating at different speeds, to give our soul greater freedom of expression.
8. Immortality. Tao inner alchemy offers Seven Alchemy Formulas for Eternal Life. These seven stages are a practical map to spiritually rebirth the mortal self into an immortal consciousness that continues functioning after death. This is not a quest for physical immortality. Ordinary souls dissolve after death. Enlightened souls hold enough integrity to reincarnate consciously, a kind of soul immortality.Spiritual immortality is the stage beyond enlightenment. It allows us to complete the natural process of soul individuation that is happening in both our Lesser Self/personality as well as our cosmic Greater Self. Spiritual Immortality is Nature’s way to allow the most worthy individual beings to participate in the ongoing creation of the divine multi-verse.
9. Spontaneity. Every soul seeks two things. One, to complete its unique worldly destiny. Two, to achieve a high spiritual destiny of consciously merging back into its Original Spirit. But destiny is not a fixed or pre-determined path. There is only the effortless spontaneous unfolding of each moment (‘wu wei’).The Supreme Mystery (wu ji) that births the Life Force will always remain unknowable and unpredictable, even as we gradually merge with the vastness of the Tao. This central Mystery lives in the core of our inner self and keeps all life eternally fresh, joyful, and spontaneous.
Classic areas to study and practice depicted above:
HEAVEN above
The Complete I Ching ― 10th Anniversary Edition: The Definitive Translation – Illustrated, November 17, 2010 by Taoist Master Alfred Huang ... The I Ching or Yi Jing usually translated as Book of Changes, is an ancient Chinese divination text and among the oldest of the Chinese classics, dating to the ninth century BCE in it's earliest form. The I Ching is used in a type of divination called cleromancy, which uses random numbers determined by tossing yarrow stalks or coins. The interpretation of the readings found in the I Ching is a matter which has been endlessly discussed and debated over in the centuries following its compilation, and many commentators have used the book symbolically, often to provide guidance for moral decision making as informed by Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. The hexagrams themselves have often acquired cosmological significance and been paralleled with many other traditional names for the processes of change such as yin and yang and Wu Xing. The I Ching book consists of 64 hexagrams. A hexagram in this context is a figure composed of six stacked horizontal lines (爻 yáo), where each line is either Yang (an unbroken, or solid line), or Yin (broken, an open line with a gap in the center). Hexagrams are formed by combining the original eight trigrams in different combinations. The Chinese word for a hexagram is 卦 "guà", although that also means trigram. Each hexagram is accompanied with a description, often cryptic, akin to parables. Each line in every hexagram is also given a similar description.
I like the above text, but our Temple oracles (@TempleWhore and GOMORY-LIVES) prefer Unveiling the Mystery of the I Ching Paperback – October 6, 2016 by Tuck Chang ... Amanda normally uses yarrow stalks to do I Ching (much slower and more involved than coins) and at my behest will ask for advice (expansion) on Moon ritual keywords in her RITES FOR THE MORNINGSTAR epilogues.
Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings (English Edition) March 1, 2020 by Zhuangzi, Brook Ziporyn (Translator) ... New, definitive and essential in understanding the philosophic constructs of the Tao:
The Zhuangzi is an ancient Chinese text from the late Warring States period (476–221 BC) which contains stories and anecdotes that exemplify the carefree nature of the ideal Taoist sage. Named for its traditional author, "Master Zhuang" (Zhuangzi), the Zhuangzi is one of the two foundational texts of Taoism, along with the Tao Te Ching.
The Zhuangzi consists of a large collection of anecdotes, allegories, parables, and fables, which are often humorous or irreverent. Its main themes are of spontaneity in action and of freedom from the human world and its conventions. The fables and anecdotes in the text attempt to illustrate the falseness of human distinctions between good and bad, large and small, life and death, and human and nature. While other ancient Chinese philosophers focused on moral and personal duty, Zhuangzi promoted carefree wandering and becoming one with "the Way" (Dào 道) by following nature.
Though primarily known as a philosophical work, the Zhuangzi is regarded as one of the greatest literary works in all of Chinese history, and has been called "the most important pre-Qin text for the study of Chinese literature". A masterpiece of both philosophical and literary skill, it has significantly influenced writers for more than 2000 years.
The Zhuangzi is a deep well of unbounded wisdom - flowing like the Tao with endless interpretations and much to ponder. Check it out, you will be amply rewarded.
Now for my favorite Taoist literary work. Western minds require good translations and I found two in College. Here is a good link to What's the Best Tao Te Ching Translation.
The Tao set forth as dogma
is not the everlasting Tao.
Words cannot contain
the infinite Word.
The epitome of Chaos Magick ~
My fave translation: **Lao Tsu: Tao Te Ching Paperback – January 1, 1974 by Gia-fu Geng and Jane English ... Don't be discouraged by the Amazon price, copies are usually quite affordable if you search the internet. This 81 verse book is poetic Taoist art, using only the two yin/yang colors and is very easy to read at one sitting - yet yields infinite insights upon re-reading. My Northwestern history of religion class text from 1974 is a wonderful companion book: The Way of Lao Tzu, paperback – orig. 1963 by Wing-Tsit Chan ... It gives scholarly context and commentary on this foundational philosophical work and it's impact.
EARTH below
Central image is the Purple Cloud Monastery in the [Wudang mountains]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wudang_Mountains[], Hubei China. The Zixiao Palace (or Purple Cloud Temple) standing on Zhanqi Peak - a monastery in the Wudang Mountains Taoist complex.
Taoist monks here have learned and practiced the cultivation arts for a thousand years.
The Wudang Mountains are renowned for the practice of Tai chi and Taoism as the Taoist counterpart to the Shaolin Monastery, which is affiliated with Chinese Chán Buddhism. The Wudang Mountains are one of the "Four Sacred Mountains of Taoism" in China, an important destination for Taoist pilgrimages. Wudang martial arts, like the Tao are meditative, gentle and flowing an internal art - receptive and yin. The Shaolin Monastery founded in 495 AD at Henan, is a renowned temple recognized as the birthplace of Chan Buddhism and the cradle of Shaolin Kung Fu. Their teachings are active, very yang and mostly external. Long ago, I greatly enjoyed viewing the Kung Fu that was born from Western interest in Eastern practices.
Next Qi Gong practices:
[The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets of Health, Longevity, & Enlightenment (Qigong Foundation) Paperback – October 15, 1997]
by Dr. Jwing-Ming Yang Ph.D. ... Not a "fun" lay person read or easy to understand, but excellent information. My go-to Qi Gong info source.
Why Qi Gong?
It's a perfect meld of the mind/body/spirit symbiosis in a practice that is effective. Since Mao Zedong died in 1976, it has become the national "religion" of China, replacing Confucianism. Millions of people believe it is the Way. As a practice to cultivate and balance qi It has influenced White Tigress/Jade Dragon dual cultivation in some interesting ways.
Another great holistic movement practice is Tai chi, short for T'ai chi ch'üan, sometimes also known as "Shadowboxing". Tai chi is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for defense training, health benefits, and meditation.
T'ai Chi Classics, 2017 by Waysun Liao ... Foundational. However, the key after reading the classic texts is putting this information into practice. These "forms" or movements came from five traditional schools and have evolved in modern times.
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