Tao Articles

Inside Chi Flows Naturally:

1. Story on the Rebirthing of Ron Diana into a new body. Ron is a
Healing Tao Instructor who is bravely facing an aggressive
asbestos-caused cancer using natural therapy – and can use our
heart and belly-laughing assistance during this Summer Solstice
to get him over the Death Hump.

2. Notes on doing a Summer Solstice ceremony. Exact Solstice is
Monday June 20, at 2:46 am EST, but consider it a three day event
for ceremonial purposes (sun-tues).

3. Sincere apologies to all who have had difficulty registering
for summer retreats or had delays in getting products shipped.
Our fantastically efficient registrar and one person fulfillment
office Karin Sorvik suddenly had to become chief care-giver for
her partner Ron Diana. Combined with technical problems on new
duplicating equipment recently purchased (now solved), and phone
line transfer delays, we’ve been passing through a temporary
slowdown in our response time.

Dear Seekers of the Highest Natural Truth,

We are already deep within (in the northern hemisphere) that time
of change when the Sun reaches its Highest Point in the sky and
we experience the Longest Day: Summer Solstice. For the Taoists
this was a moment when the Sun magnetically pulls the hidden
Earth Dragon into the full light of Day where it dances with the
celestial consciousness of the Light side.

For many modern people no longer in touch with natural yin-yang
fluctuations of Nature, this is an fairly abstract cosmic event.
Many can?t feel the Dragon of Light rising up within their body;
our level of vibration may be too scattered and weak from monkey
mind games. But Solstice still plays out on a personal level for
each of us. I wish to share a few personal details of a drama of
Light and Dark and the Primordial Beyond being played out by my
dear long time friend and colleague, Ron Diana.

Ron Diana is one of the oldest and most respected Senior
Instructors of the Healing Tao. I met him in 1980 at Mantak
Chia?s first workshop in a tiny room in New York?s Chinatown. We
instantly hit it off, as he has an irreverent laugh that
instantly melts all human pettiness. What a gift! It seemed he
was born to deliver the punch line to the cosmic joke.

Today he is justifiably famous as a powerful healer who has given
over 50,000. treatments using a variety of chi nei tsang (deep
organ massage) and other chi-healing methods which he refined to
very simple yet profound levels. He did a lot of the writing on
Mantak?s Chi Nei Tsang book. He has shepherded untold numbers of
people through healing crises and potentially terminal illnesses
including cancer. He was the healer of many wounded healers and
energy workers who needed his magical touch.

But much more important than Ron?s record of achievement is his
personal Presence. Ron embodies a combination of deep
earth-rootedness and inner smile that is totally unique. He
taught Iron Shirt rooting and tai chi chi kung for decades and
was literally strong as a horse. Through his many phases of
transformation, what I loved most about Ron is his huge grin,
followed by a friendly deep laugh that hit you deep in your
dantian (belly center). He is a master at transmitting chi
through his belly laughter. I have never met anyone else with
this ability. As his laugh vibrates in your belly, personal
problems scurry for cover and suddenly veils begin to lift.
Spontaneous revelations of being deeper in your bones unfold, and
you settle deeper into being your True Body.

Last summer Ron visited an old friend in the hospital dying from
cancer. Immediately afterward, he developed a persistent cough
that would not go away, and a feeling of dizziness. Then his car
rolled over the day after he finished teaching at Dao Mtn. last
summer. He miraculously walked away from it, but it shocked his
chest. This winter he found fluid forming in his lungs that had
to be drained. A few months ago an MRI finally revealed the
cause: a rare form of asbestos-induced cancer that is very
aggressive called mesothelioma.

Ron comes from a working class background of Czech-Dutch/Irish
emigrants and a great grand mother that was Native American.
Thirty years ago he spent five years working in a Boston shipyard
and later in construction jobs that exposed him to high levels of
asbestos. Its as if the virus sat there dormant for 30 years, a
karmic trojan horse waiting for the signal from Ron?s friend
dying of cancer and the car accident. For a healer who has been
on the front lines in helping thousands restore their health,
this is a powerful shock and needless to say, a bit dismaying.
But Tao is about endless change, that we can only surrender to.

But the intense self-examination and “Why me?” question faced by
every wounded healer pales beside the Life and Death urgency of
the immediate
prognosis: there is no known cure for this virulent form of
cancer. None of the modern medicine treatments
(chemo/radiation/surgery) has ever been able to even appreciably
slow it down. It has a 100% fatality rate.

Despite this, Ron chose to overcome the overwhelming odds and
believes he can change the paradigm, the death-spell held by this
cancer. He chose to pursue a course of natural therapy based on
the work of Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer. Dr Hamer believes that most
metastases or secondary tumors are caused by the cancer-fear or
death-fear resulting from the patient given the cancer diagnosis
or a negative prognosis. However, the resulting conflict and
shock may not be fear of death but rather anger, resentment or a
separation conflict from partner or children, which cause tumors
to appear in different places.

Generally hopelessness, despair and meaninglessness create
chronic stress, which prevent the healing from cancer and other
diseases; but they are not the cause. According to Hamer the real
cause of cancer and other diseases is an unexpected traumatic
shock for which we are emotionally unprepared. The following list
shows some of the relationships between conflict emotions and
target organs, that matches closely the Taoist importance placed
on the vital organ spirits as the functional centers of the
?heart-mind? (xin):

Lung / Chest = Any attack to the chest (triggered his
Mesothelioma)

Liver Fear of starvation = Not being able to be a provider

Kidneys = Not wanting to live, water or fluid conflict, fear for
your own life

Adrenal cortex – Wrong direction taken in life, wrong partner
chosen

More info: www.newmedicine.ca

Ron is at a critical stage of healing and needs support from the
collective chi field which we can give him.

With Ron?s permission I began working in his inner chi field
(energy body) to see if I could support his process. What I
discovered was quite amazing. From having worked as a qigong
therapist over many years with a variety of cancer patients, I am
familiar with the smell of death and its energetic markers. It is
totally absent in Ron?s case at this moment. Despite Ron?s
physical weakness barely able to walk, thinned face, belly
swollen from fluids there is total peace and clarity in his
inner space. It is like stepping into the vast field of the
formless heaven with a few wispy white clouds. There is no inner
fear of death or struggle with death or darkness.

My conclusion is that there is only a struggle with the form of
Ron?s rebirth. He has already attained a kind of spiritual
immortality from his decades of Tao cultivation that ensures the
integrated continuity of his consciousness whatever the outcome
of his process. The cancer virus is an agent of change, a part of
the inexorable balancing of the whole. Ron has made friends with
the virus, forgiven it and released whatever unconscious space it
held within him. His father died from a rare disease when he was
two years old; he has released the need to recapitulate that
death.

But Ron?s challenge is the challenge we all face: can we SHAPE
THE CHANGE that is unstoppably happening, can we in each and
every moment shape shift the chi field to re-manifest a new
body-mind in the physical plane? The spirit is vast,
but the physical plane is the tiniest part of the chi field. Its
hard for spirit to stay in the body if the link is too fragile.
That is why we are all only one breath away from death.

It is a question of inner will bridging the gap between spirit
and matter. That is a deep challenge, because of the time zone
gap in communication between our high frequency field of
spiritualawareness and the slow-vibrating physical body particle.
Its like the shower of neutrinos and cosmic rays that bombard the
earth from stars and distant outer space: can we capture the
spiritual message that so fleetingly passes us by, even if it is
our spiritual self sending it to our bodily self?

The summer Solstice represents a unique moment of stillness in
the vast cosmic turning of the Earth, and humanity?s Great Body.
The 6 month cycle of Great Yang/Light ends, and we begin
contracting towards a six month cycle of Great Yin/Darkness,
culminating in winter solstice. “Solstice” is derived from two
Latin words: “sol” meaning sun, and “sistere,” to cause to stand
still.

The stillness arises from the reversal of yin and yang. They both
shift into neutral gear (yuan) for a few days during this
changing of the yin-yang guard. The primordial force (yuan chi,
or neutral clear light) is important because it has not yet taken
a particular direction of flow into light and dark. On solstices
the vast portals of cosmic potential are flung wide open. Those
who can tap into it are free to do so.

But it is hard for Ron to tap into that cosmic reservoir when he
is weakened by disease, and his chi is tied up in just remaining
physically present. That is his main complaint: he feels too weak
to work on himself as deeply as he would like. But he knows that
no later than this Tuesday June 22 is the crucial moment of
rebirth for him. NOW is the time his soul will choose the
direction of rebirth, into the physical or into the spiritual.

So I am inviting each person reading this email to take a moment
and become part of a powerful collective healing chi wave focused
on Ron Diana. I invite you to open your inner heart and simply
ask the Life Force, ?Please help Ron Diana immediately grow a
healthy physical body. I open my heart to loving Ron back into
his body!?. Then smile, and connect your inner heart to Ron?s,
and feel your belly laughing and vibrating with his.

He doesn?t need your pity or empathy; he needs your grounded,
silent belly laugh to magnetically help keep his soul centered in
the physical as he goes through his transformation and rebirth.
He doesn?t want to re-incarnate in a different physical body he
wants rebirth here and now. That would really do something to
break the old paradigm of Death and cancer. I suspect you will
receive more from the exchange than Ron, but that is for you to
explore.

Ron is living right at the portal between light and dark, at the
border of the Primordial Beyond, the Supreme Mystery (wuji).
That is a gift Ron can share with us right now. And that is what
Summer Solstice is about another fantastic opportunity to grow
by leaps and bounds, to harvest another of Nature?s endless gifts
by leaping into the Unknown and growing something anew. Join Ron
in breaking an old paradigm. Ron?s shift may be greater than
ours, but his shift will make Death an easier shift for all of
us, a choice with more freedom in it. So shall we meet in the mid
planes of loving Ron back into his body?

Loving The Body of All Suffering into Harmonic Flow,

Michael

Inside Chi Flows Naturally:

Life and death are one thread,

the same flowing line seen from different sides.

All things come into being, then return to their original state.

Plants flourish, then return to their root.

Returning to root is called tranquility;

Tranquility may be called fulfilling one’s natural end.

This fulfillment we may call the unchanging way.

– Lao Tzu

Dear Lovers of the Natural Way,

It’s a time for laughter through tears.

In my last email, I chronicled Ron Diana’s struggle with an
asbestos-caused cancer that had suddenly become active in the
last year. As a powerful healer and Taoist cultivator through
qigong and meditation, he bravely attempted to heal himself of
this “incurable” cancer.

Many of you responded to my request to support him by sending
laughter and loving chi. I forwarded all the emails you sent, and
they were printed out and read to him. He deeply appreciated the
emails with a big smile.

On Friday, July 1, 2005, Ron consciously surrendered his weakened
physical body and gracefully continued his journey as a wandering
Taoist, this time in the immortal realm.

At Dao Mountain on Friday night, we had a wonderful candlelit
circle of 35 people in a deep send-off meditation for Ron,
punctuated by funny stories, a guitar song, and touching moments
of grief. If you knew Ron, I urge you to have your own private
memorial, and open your heart to him while he is still near.
Karin is leading another meditation to release all of Ron’s
attachments to the physical plane on Sunday at noon (EST). Tune
in then, or later – its an ongoing process to help him shift
effortlessly.

I wish to share his partner Karin Sorvik’s description of his
rebirthing:

“Ron is at peace, and I’m at peace too. I had a wonderful time
with Ron until the very last minute with tons of love and kisses.
I did finally let him go, to free him to find out what the next
step of his journey is. That was the big question on his mind. I
felt a powerful transmission come into my hand as he shifted into
deep silence, and passed to the other side.

?Ron’s wish in this life was to be a Taoist wanderer, traveling
and teaching and enjoying life. He wanted to raise the
consciousness of the planet. He wanted to be remembered with
laughter, for all the good things that people were touched by,
not to cry at how we are going to miss him. Because each moment
that we think of him, he is always here with us.”

Easier said than done. Karin’s simple and elegant words made me
cry. I am overjoyed that Ron is flying free from the limitations
of his body. I know that death is illusory, that Ron is in the
process of joyfully rebirthing his unique essence within the
formless planes. Like Karin, I support him to fly as freely in
spirit as he did in earthly life. I am confident he will continue
mediating human individual existence with the Supreme Mystery
(wuji).

Yet all this cannot instantly dissolve my deep grief over his
departure. He was for decades one of my closest friends, and we
shared many spiritual adventures together along the Way. I miss
his wonderful smile, his enlightened belly laugh, his rootedness
in the earth, his direct simplicity as a teacher and healer.

I did tai chi this morning, and invited Ron’s spirit to flow with
me inside my bodily form. We had a wonderful communion. I
remembered doing tai chi with Ron atop the Acropolis in Greece,
and the great laugh we had when the guards stopped us, telling us
?that no strange religious practices are allowed here?. Ah, the
perils of being a Taoist.

I’ve been tuning in to Ron and holding open a portal of clear
light from my kan & li meditations. Just in case there were any
aspects of his soul team that wanted to stray. I also let Ron
know that I was going to be really pissed at him if he didn’t
reveal to me the punch line to the cosmic joke from his new
perspective in the formless. Ron let me know its easier to grin
when you’re in human form, and to enjoy it while it lasts….

Ron’s departure may appear as a great loss to the thousands of
people whose lives he lovingly touched. If we ?invest in loss?, a
Taoist term for surrender to the inevitable flow of chi, we can
temper our deep sorrow. From loss opens up a new vulnerability,
it deepens our inner space. In it can grow the joy and bliss
available from maintaining inner contact with Ron’s soul in the
next week.

Let Ron’s death, like every death in our lives, be a teaching on
embracing change. Eventually Ron’s “heart-mind” (the five vital
organ body spirits) will dissolve and merge into dimensions of
collective consciousness that may be a bit distant for individual
human contact. So send him all love on his new journey NOW, and
be open to receiving a glimpse of where you are someday headed.

Many will wonder at the unexpected turn of events, and it may
cause some to question the value of cultivation practice or the
dangers of healing work. Many high spiritual teachers have died
from illness; few of us will totally master the forces that
control the portal of death and rebirth. But our practice tempers
these forces, and allows us to gracefully flow with them. It is
important to remember that Taoists of the inner alchemy tradition
seek spiritual immortality, not physical immortality. Longevity
is cultivated only to allow us more time to integrate the
“alchemical golden light” of our original self.

We cannot know all the mysteries of Ron’s soul journey, and best
not to judge or surmise. It may be Ron’s illness came at this
point as part of a soul impulse to take him into working from the
other side as a spirit healer. Or it may have been Ron was pulled
by other forces. I spoke with Juan Li in Barcelona, Spain. He is
another of Ron’s close friends, who illustrated all the early
Healing Tao books.

Juan Li wondered whether a ?spirit flyer? had hooked Ron on his
visit to a hospital a year ago, when Ron had gone to see a friend
dying of cancer. Ron was emotionally vulnerable at that moment,
the asbestos irritation was lying in wait for 35 years, and
hospitals are filled with spirits eager to escort souls to into
the formless. That makes hospitals into a kind of portal that can
hook unconscious forces within us. Perhaps that is one lesson
here: stay conscious and centered when you enter such a portal
space. We cannot really know.

But we can know that Ron Diana cultivated a unique awareness here
on earth whose essence is immortal. He is still vibrating here. I
invite you to tune in and listen to Ron’s newly cosmic
belly-laugh. Let go of your tears and your fear of death. Enjoy
the free flow of consciousness that pulses between the form and
formless realms in each moment.

Ron’s wish was to have his body be cremated, and his ashes
returned to the earth. He asked they be scattered on a mountain
by the Seven Lakes near his home, with a simple Taoist ceremony.
Details will be announced, if family decides to make it an open
event. IRon’s instructions: send no flowers, lovingly plant a
seed, support new life.

Wishing you the deep peace of the Tao
that arises from beyond life and beyond death,

Michael Winn

“Who takes Heaven as his ancestor, Virtue as his home,
the Tao as his door, and who becomes change – is a Sage.”

— Chuang Tzu, Inner Chapters

“The Tao is very close, but everyone looks far away.
Life is very simple, but everyone seeks difficulty.”

– Taoist Sage, 200 B.C

Suggestions for an Equinox Ceremony

The following is modified version of spring equinox directions,
the intention is modified to reflect the direct infuence of the fire element.

The Power of Physical Movement in Ritual

I feel the most powerful ceremony includes a ritual chi kung
(qigong) form. The movement of the physical body invokes your
deepest soul essence (jing) if you are deeply centered while
moving. When you combine a movement ritual with specific
intention, it becomes nei kung (neigong), or “internal skill in
cultivating the life force”.

My favorite ceremonial form is one developed by the Taoist sage
Chang San Feng, the creator of the original tai chi form and its
esoteric sister, wuji gong. Wuji gong I translate as Primordial
Chi Kung or Tai Chi for Enlightenment. (For more about its
origins and efficacy, see www.taichi-enlightenment.com
. Its available in dvd or
video, and has an optional audio training as well).

My Deep Healing Chi Kung form (available on dvd) is also very
ceremonial in nature. It faces all the directions and harmonizes
the center of the Sun with the deep center of the Earth Being.
Doing just one of its six movements – the three part mandala of
Sun-Earth exchange
– transports me into an altered state. It’s called medical chi
kung simply because it was developed with that intention. But it
could be directed to any other goal, or used to add power to an
equinox ceremony.

You don’t have to know a chi kung form, although doing the same
one every solstice/equinox is more powerful. Using the same form
“programs” and empowers your energy body to contact the yuan chi
at those times. It helps to capture/embody the elusive yuan chi,
which our polarized egos don’t want to notice because it
threatens our illusory belief that we are an island. Original Chi
is boundary-less, so it challenges our belief that the energy we
feel is uniquely ‘mine”, under “my” control.

The truth is no one owns the chi field, and it is not controlled
by any one deity or external agent/God. It just IS. It is
self-generating and self-regulating. Everyone can use its
abundance if we have the skill to do it. We use it unconsciously
all the time. But if we consciously use it to promote harmony and
balance in our life, the Tao will give us more chi to play with.
If we abuse it or over control for selfish ends, a natural
contraction occurs. We will face increased resistance in our life
and chi flow, resulting possibly in suffering, disease, or death.

1. SACRED SPACE. keep it simple. Find or create a sacred space
where no one disturbs you, indoors or out. The more neutral the
better – if any element (wind, noise) is too strong, it will
distract you. Turn off all phones. Face all the directions, and
smile or tone to all beings in that direction, and ask them to
help you purify your ritual space. Don’t forget to smile to the
inner space of your body, and attune to its highest, most core
divinity. Invite in the Tao Immortals, your personal guides, and
any other beings/teachers from any tradition you feel are
important.

During the actual ceremony I invite the Beings of All Directions
and All Dimensions into my ceremony. Don’t exclude the dark side
– it is holding part of the balance. It is important to align
yourself with the whole field of the Life Force, as it carries
your greater self – including the good, the bad, the ugly and the
beautiful. If we embrace the whole within our personal self, then
our ceremonial intention will come out balanced.

If you light a candle, put a red one in the south to symbolize
Summer and Fire,
or put five candles – one in each direction and the center.
Timing: High Noon
is perfect mini-solstice moment that matches summer, with the sun
at its peak. But any time can work. Its a big event, the chi is
flowing strongly for three days at least.

2. FOCUS INTENTION. Get a clear intention as to the ONE thing
that is most important to EXPAND OR TRANSCEND in your life in
this moment. Fire element/phase is about RAPID TRANSFORMATION. Do
not attempt to wish something for other people or even your own
children – let them unfold their own nature. (Do not do your
solstice ceremony for Ron Diana). Be specific, be concrete as to
what you want to change and allow to expand in yourself NOW. Do
not use language delaying anything into the future. Receive it
NOW.

Don’t feel guilty about asking to EXPAND or RAPIDLY TRANSFORM
material things if they truly would serve you best at this moment
(new car, a different job, a
lover). It is not selfish to ask that your material needs be met.
Or ask that your needs expand beyond or transcend your physical
needs. Just ask inside what it is you most need to transcend or
lighten up.

Harmony and balance arrives from each individual completing their
destiny, their soul desires. Just make sure they are authentic
needs, not the idle desire for a million dollars. Do not ask for
money except for the exact amount needed for a specific purpose –
you risk growing unconscious greed or vague fears of not having
enough money.

So you would say, by example, “I need to grow expand my wealth by
a thousand dollars for this specific retreat I want to attend”.
Or “I need to receive $200,000. IN ORDER to expand my new life
and buy a house in Hawaii”. You don’t need to focus on the
selling of your old house, just whatever it is you want to
expand.

Or expand a specific spiritual quality in your inner body-mind
space, such as a greater capacity for self-acceptance,
other-acceptance, abilty to heal a disease or a broken
relationship, deeper power of meditation, deeper service to
humanity, or deeper movement practice.

3. RITUALLY COMMUNICATE WITH CHI FIELD. After you have
established your clear intention, face SOUTH (direction of
Summer, sun bringing new life). Open your heart, share your
sincere need to merge more deeply with the Life Force and all
beings. Do your movement ritual, which may involve facing and
gathering chi from all five directions, as well as above and
below. If you don’t have a chi kung or a short piece of a tai chi
form, do spontaneous movement, song, dance, or poetry. After you
finish, face south again.

4. RELEASE PERSONAL INTENTION TO FIELD OF YUAN CHI. Infuse a
booster shot of yuan chi or Original Breath from the Equinox chi
field into your specific desire. Simply feel and mentally focus
on your desired goal of RAPID TRANSFORMATION very strongly, with
all the personal chi you can muster. Your specific desire
polarizes the chi field. Then release it into the
larger chi field. This acts like a cosmic lube job, as the field
of yuan chi at Equinox will spontaneously attempt to balance your
desire. Nature now knows EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED has an easy path
with little resistance to delivering what you truly need.

5. BE PREPARED TO ACCEPT CHANGE. A lot of people forget about
this part of the deal. You want something expanded or
transcended, and you do

Summer Solstice Ceremony Instructions

Suggestion for Summer Solstice Ritual.

If you ask for more power in your life, it brings greater
responsibility as well. This can come as a nasty shock to some.
You get the new lover you asked for, but s/he makes a lot of
demands on your old comfortable way of life. Change is not just
external — it must be matched by internal changes.

I wish you a powerful ceremony and the power to digest what you
invoke!

May the Five Inner Tones of the Tao Sing in our Heart,

Michael Winn

“Who takes Heaven as his ancestor, Virtue as his home,

the Tao as his door, and who becomes change – is a Sage.”
— Chuang Tzu, Inner Chapters

“The Tao is very close, but everyone looks far away.

Life is very simple, but everyone seeks difficulty.”

– Taoist Sage, 200 B.C

Note: For a review by Michael Winn of Stephen Karcher’s Total I Ching, see the Amazon.com book reviews. This version of the I Ching is the most suitable for Healing Tao adepts, combining the ancient shamanic Jou I Ching with the later Confucian I Ching.

A New Method of Tossing I Ching Hexagrams

by Stuart Harrop (U.K.)

Which version of the I Ching is best?

When I began using the I Ching some 37 years ago the only significant version available was the renowned Richard Wilhelm translation. This translation served me well for years. I would not recommend it now. There are some far better, more accurate and comprehensive translations available. However, the forward to this edition by Carl Gustav Jung, in which he asks the I Ching to analyse the effect of its arrival in the West, is interesting and indeed a lesson in interpreting the oracle.

Until very recently the best technical translation, giving a flavour of the directness of the original Chinese and drawing on the known key source documents, was the translation by Rudolf Ritsema and Stephen Karcher (Element 1994). As soon as this book appeared I dropped the Wilhelm version and didn?t look back. However, this is bulky and esoteric in the extreme. Karcher has since produced many small texts based on his translation work. Even though these books look like every-day versions, such is Karcher?s scholarship (as a sinologist) and depth of understanding and true relationship with the oracle, that they are all useful and reliable.

They go by many names: Elements of the I Ching, How to Use the I Ching etc. and he keeps reprinting them with new names presumably pursuant to his publisher?s policy to encourage sales. He has even produced a version called Love Symbols (with added relationship meditations produced by two other authors). I have not used this version but his rationale for producing it is that most of the questions asked of the I Ching have something to do with human relationships.

I mention these subsidiary books because if you are hiking across mountains or trekking in the jungle you may want to carry a small text!

The best of the I Ching editions by an immeasurable gulf is Karcher?s latest work: Total I Ching -Myths for Change (Time Warner Books 2003, also available from Capitol Books). This deploys the best of the text translations and adds in the ancient mythical and magical roots of the I Ching taking it back to all of our ancestors. (That isn?t too far back according to scientists in a recent Nature paper where it is suggested that we all share common ancestors who lived at about BC 1500 or even in the AD years if we discount outlying islands! So if Lao Tzu had kids???..)

The only problem with this version is that it is a little heavy for a rucksack.There is a rumour that a smaller more portable version by Time?Warner books is on its way.. (Note: it now available in smaller pocketbook size, soon to be available on this site – we may also put a digital version of it online).

Finally, there are many other versions of the I Ching and some are useful for cross-referencing or for cosmological introductions. One or two are very badly translated or too coloured by the author?s own prejudices to allow the oracle through. The safe bet is to stick to Karcher?s translations and for oracular use; the Total I Ching is all you need!

Using the Oracle

The I Ching does not require pomp and circumstance. Some say that the long, slow yarrow process is best in order to reach the right meditative state. I don?t entirely agree. If the questioner (the adept or Chun Tzu) has already set foot in the Kan and Li?s he or she has already learned to focus rapidly and effectively enough to work with the I Ching as if in a conversation with Michael Winn at breakfast. Karcher gives very clear instructions on the process in all of his books.

Essentially: ask a question when you have a real need. In so doing: focus and centre your shen, write the question down and then consult the oracle. In my experience, I usually get the answer to my real question. This is not always the same as the question reduced to writing. The I Ching is particularly capable of cutting through all of our personal nonsense and trappings. On many occasions it has seen through my superficially new question and scolded me as a ?Young Fool? for repeating one of the questions it has already clearly and unequivocally answered. So be prepared for the guidance that you truly need!!

For years I used the coin method, predominantly. However, when I had the time I preferred to use the yarrow stalk method. (See most of Karcher?s books for instructions.) I felt that the latter method produced clearer answers and that it contributed to developing my relationship with the oracle. The downside is that yarrow stalks are bulky and take up too much space in a rucksack. Worse still, if you are in a hurry, asking the I Ching a question can take a long time.

Karcher recommends a new method (again all mentioned in most of his books) concerning the use of 16 coloured beads or similar objects. This proposed method is portable, as rapid as the coins and yet it replicates the odds of the yarrow stalk oracle. I now use something like this almost exclusively. However, instead of basing the system on colours, I use a depiction of the actual line that will make up the hexagram. This ?dowel? method has brought me increasingly closer to understanding the ramifications of change as they affect my life.

The dowel method

Cut 16 similar sized thin pieces of dowel. (Use a thickness of either 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch to retain a portable system.) Then sand them and draw a hexagram line on each of them in the following ratio:

— five (solid yang liine)

– – seven (broken yin line)

-O- three (solid yang line with 0 over it)

– X – one (broken yin line with X in center)

To consult the oracle place all of the pieces of dowel in a suitably sacred bag (or if you wish an old sock!), shake it and draw one piece out at random whilst visualising and using any technique you can to become fully immersed in your question. Draw the line revealed on each piece of dowel (from the bottom up), place the dowel back in the bag and repeat the process until you have drawn the six lines.

As long as there are 16 pieces of dowel in the bag prior to extraction the probability of drawing a particular aspect of change replicates the ancient yarrow stalk method.

Using the ratios described, there must be many other alternatives to this. A computer programme could be developed, by example, that generates specific musical tones attributed to each line.

Once the hexagram is generated Karcher details a number of ways in which it can be analysed and I recommend these are experimented with. Many of the methods he describes are new to the west and take the pronouncements of the I Ching much further and deeper. One particularly important process which should not be neglected is to let the images which are generated by the oracle permeate your imaginations, meditations and dreams. Total I Ching is particularly useful in supporting this process through the wonderful range of exquisitely rich images that are in the background descriptions to the hexagrams. I have found that these images ultimately give me the most guidance. They act directly on my shen and do not, like so many words, stick in my head. I also find that the guidance I receive acts on a number of levels, not only in my conscious approach to life, but also in the inner events within my alchemical meditations.

Probabilities and the nature of yin and yang
I have no doubt that the I Ching can reach beyond probability and speak to us direct. But we are dreaming in later heaven and are subject to the laws of mathematics aswell as physics. Therefore, I deploy an oracular method that replicates the probability ratio of the ancient yarrow oracle. I find that this approach deepens the relationship without forcing dependence on an impossibly impeccable level of focus.

There is an older method that uses tortoise shells (with weird probability ratios) but burning the carapaces of endangered species is not within my concept of the Dao?s flow.

The probability statistics of the coin, yarrow and ?dowel? methods are as follows:

Probability of drawing a line

3 Coin Method vs. Yarrow or Dowel Method

yang line 3 in 8 vs. 5 in 16

yin line 3 in 8 vs. 7 in 16

changing yang line O 1 in 8 vs. 3 in 16

changing yin line X 1 in 8 vs. 1 in 16

Karcher believes that the coin method is too symmetrical and does not penetrate as deeply into a situation as the older yarrow stalks oracle or the simpler dowel method that I have described. He says that yin and yang are asymmetrical in their qualities and the odds in the yarrow stalk oracle reflect the tendency of yin energy to stay in place and that of yang energy to move.

This is difficult to appreciate when we consider some aspects of the yin-yang flux. Thus the cycles of the moon are symmetrical (although its dark phase might appear to be longer than its full, bright phase). Similarly the seasons seem to depict a symmetry (but some believe that winter goes on far, far too long and summer is gone almost as soon as it begins). Time may not be relevant here.

The qualities of yin and yang described by Karcher are not necessarily time-based but may reflect the asymmetry of later heaven. For my part I have had consistent and direct communication with the I Ching using the dowel method and the only areas that have been difficult to understand have concerned questions about my internal alchemical practices. In retrospect it might be that we should consider using a coin oracle, with its symmetrical odds if we feel we are requesting information that might require an understanding of early rather than later heaven dynamics.

Ultimately, however, the I Ching is designed to give guidance for the human in his or her later heaven interactions. I suspect that when we can truly act from the centre then we transcend the dictates of change.

On that latter note we also have to be careful not to obsess and certainly we must avoid being ruled by the I Ching. Rather than relying on an oracle and being subject to the ramifications of change, the alchemical goals surely include transcendence through functioning more and more from the centre: from a state of wu-wei (not that I would know!!)

Best,

Stuart Harrop

8 October 2004

Stuart Harrop holds a professorial Chair in the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, within the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kent, UK.

He has, over the last period of 20 years, learned a number of ?shamanic? dreaming and other practices deriving from various South American and Celtic traditions. Changing direction somewhat he has concentrated his path by studying the Taoist nei dan practices, during the last 10 years, mostly on a self-taught basis (although during the last three years he has been taught by both Mantak Chia and Michael Winn). He has recently taught elements of these practices to small groups in the UK and Africa. Mantak Chia awarded him the status of Honorary Senior Inner Alchemy Instructor in March 2003.

IMMORTALITY

The focal point of Daoist worldview (Menschenbild) is the attainment of immortality or transcendence, which can be understood on three levels that are also applicable to Qigong practice today. These levels are: harmony with nature, perfection of nature, and transcendence of nature. First, it is an ideal of immortals not to meddle with the course of nature, to go along with the changes and patterns that nature prescribes.(1) Then again, immortality is understood as the perfection of nature, finding the perfect order inherent in the Dao. On a third level, finally, immortality is the transcendence of nature, the realization of the supernatural, a state which implies the conscious separation from normal society and ordinary human habits.

To attain these three levels, which can also be described as successive stages of Daoist attainment (Vervollkommnung), practitioners first identify their particular station in the grander scheme of things, note their specific physical makeup and geographical situation, and adjust to the natural rhythms of yin and yang as they manifest in their surroundings. They take care to eliminate any potential diseases or disorders, ascertain that their vital energy is strong and flowing smoothly, and move in fruitful accordance with the patterns of life. Second, they use more subtle forms of nourishment to refine their bodies, often substituting regular foods with crude or refined drugs, and align themselves in even more detail with the patterns of the cosmos, absorbing the energies of the sun and the moon at the proper times and following not only the obvious but also the inherent tendencies of the various forces of the universe. Doing so, they match themselves to the powers underlyig nature and thus reach a state of higher and subtler naturalness.

Third, Daoist seekers take food unfit for normal people and refuse normal ways of nourishment, completely replacing grains with drugs, minerals, and qi. They also enter into a direct relationship with nonhuman cosmic agencies, such as the gods who govern and control nature, but are not themselves part of it. Practitioners’ bodies become residences and pathways of the divine, their spirits become parts of the larger universe, and their true abode is no longer the earth but the sky with its planets and celestial palaces. Death at this point is avoided: even though there may be the appearance of death, the vital structures of the corpse still continue to function, and the immortal does not languish in the underworld but ascends to meet his celestial partners on high.(2)

Taking these three levels or models together, we find that there is a certain degree of contradiction within them. That is to say, if the decay of the human body is unavoidable and if one is not to meddle with the course of nature, how can one ever strive for immortality? If the first two levels are the key focus, if one is bound by the laws of nature and all one can attain is a slowing-down of the natural decay, there is no room for transcendence or immortality. Turning this around, it means that immortals, in order to achieve the very goal of their lives, must meddle with nature, overcome nature as a continuous, inescapable process.

It is at this junction, at this point of contradiction, that the medical and immortality practitioner part ways, that we see different levels and directions of health and religious practices. The physician and the longevity master accept decay as inevitable and do all they can to slow it down and make it smoother and easier. They devise exercises and take or prescribe medicines to make people stronger and healthier, but there they stop–right where the religious practitioner starts. His incentive is less to live as healthily and for as long as possible, to enjoy this life as much as he can. Rather, he wishes to attain a more perfect, a more enduring life, one that is found in the higher subtlety of the natural world, but ultimately rests beyond it.

All three levels of healing, extension of life, and transcendence of nature, are essential in both traditional Daoism and the modern practice of Qigong Yangsheng. How do they work together? How are they realized within the human being? What do people have to do to work on one or the other of them?

QI AND THE SOULS

To begin an answer to these questions, let us first look at the ancient theories of the human body and soul. The classical belief was that human beings consisted of qi or vital energy. Qi is the material aspect of the Dao, which accumulates to create life. The softest and weakest force in the world, this vital energy yet constitutes all; it makes beings what they are, causes the sky to be high and clear and the earth to be low and turbid.

The Xisheng jing (Scripture of Western Ascension, DZ 726), a fifth-century Daoist mystical texts in the tradition of the Daode jing, describes the process of creation as depending entirely on this cosmic energy or qi. It says:

Qi is the ground of all life: it comes together, coagulates, and gradually becomes solid.

Thus there are different tastes and various shapes, such as sweet, bitter, pungent, salty, and sour.

When qi moves, there are the many and the few; the strong and the weak are not the same.

They arise together, yet differ in name and appearance. Each follows its own intention in being born.

Thus they have different inner natures and natural movements, develop different bodies and selves.

They are raised through the Dao of yin and yang; thus following separate ways they are yet akin. (5.4-5.9; Kohn 1991)

As all things are created and animated by qi, so are people. Within the human person, moreover, this qi was understood to come in two basic forms: a yang part that was provided by heaven and appared as the hun soul, and a yin part that was given by earth and manifested as the po soul.(3) The gestation of the human embryo was defined as the coming-together of these two types of qi, the death of the person as their dispersal.(4) At death, the two souls go their separate ways. The hun or heavenly part ascends back towards the sky and gradually–over five to seven generations of ancestor worship–dissolves into the greater atmosphere of the universe.(5) The po or earthly part remains with the body and is buried in the soil, where it gradually will merge back into the earth.

Both souls are forms of qi, vital energy moving at different rates of oscillation, so that they are–to speak in our terms–both spiritual (geistig) and material at the same time.(6) The hun is fast moving, more subtle qi, it is more spiritual; the po is slow moving, somewhat grosser qi, it is more material. But both have the potential to become ghosts and specters and have to be cared for properly after death. Both also have the potential to be transformed into higher forms of energy constellation and attain the state of immortality. Immortality, when seen from this perspective, can be described as the transformation of all the person’s qi into hun or heavenly qi, as which the person then, after the body falls away, ascends to the celesial realms above.(7) Death at this stage is no longer a major break-up of the souls or the qi, but the transformation of a more embodied qi-state to a less embodied one, the transition from a materially bound qi to a free form of vital energy that flows along in harmony with the greater powers of the cosmos.

How, then, do people attain this death-free state? And how, on the contrary, do they come to die? The answer lies in the way people deal with the pure qi they receive at birth.
Everyone, by being endowed with qi from heaven and earth, has a basic, genetically determined inner disposition and reservoire of health. As this qi is given by the cosmic forces, it is called original or primordial qi (yuanqi). Within this qi, the person’s instinctual and intellectual tendencies are deposited, and it also determines what is the ?natural? length of his or her life. As a Daoist text of the ninth century describes it:

People are born between heaven and earth. Thus they are endowed with qi that might be pure or turbid, soft or hard….
A person of pure qi is clever, alert, wise, and intelligent. One of turbid energy is unlucky, harsh, dumb, and foolish. Someone endowed with hard qi is haughty, strong, vigorous, and violent. One who has mostly soft qi is compassionate, benevolent, honest, and magnanimous.

In the same sense, a wood-type character tends to be energetic and impulsive. An earth-type is benevolent and harmonious. A water-type tends to be modest and cautious. A fire-type is fierce and violent. And a metal-type is severe and abrupt.(8)

Whatever their inborn tendencies and character, people have three choices or ways of dealing with their primordial endowment of qi–which is sometimes envisioned like the money in a savings account:(9) they can waste and squander it, they can keep it on level (ausgewogen), and they can increase, strengthen, and purify it.

By wasting it, they invite personal and social problems, health difficulties and chronic diseases, and end up not living up to their natural lifespan but dying an early or violent death. These are the people in need of medical attention, the focus of Chinese medical practices. Keeping the primordial qi on level, the second group of people waste some of it in social and personal activities, but then compensate for this loss by practicing longevity techniques and forms of personal cultivation. They may have to face certain illnesses and various ups and downs of life, but will succeed to live to a healthy old age and die when their natural span runs out.

The third group of people will not only keep their vital qi on level but increase and purify it. They are the ones determined to become immortals, and they begin by transforming their bodies and minds into subtler entities, thereby first reaching a longevity far beyond the normally expected lifespan. If therefore, a person’s natural life expectancy was, say, 80 years, and he chooses to stay on level, he will die around that time. If he squanders and wastes his vital qi, he will be sick and unhappy, and die maybe around age 50 or 60. If he enhances his qi through the practice of longevity and immortality techniques, he will live to maybe 120 or even 200, and then avoid death, instead casting off the body and ascending to the realm on high.(10) By choosing to keep the qi at least on level and even replenishing it, people move away from death and towards life. This is where Qigong Yangsheng practices have their place.

MIND AND SPIRIT, BODY AND PHYSICAL FORM

However, how do these practices work according to the larger theoretical framework of Daoist worldview (Menschenbild)? Why don’t people, once equipped with good, heavenly qi, not just keep it naturally?

In answer to this question, Daoists propose a detailed and fairly subtle theory of the human mind and body. They assert that when people are first born, with their store of cosmic, primordial qi intact, they consist of pure spirit (shen) and physical form (xing) (Leiblichkeit?). As such they participate in the fundamental patterns of the cosmos, joining the cosmic workings of spirit.
All creation, according to Daoist cosmology, is nothing but the ongoing process of spirit’s self-realization through the medium of physical form, which can appear as body, shape, or any kind of matter.

At first, there was only spirit, which was radiant light, pure and alone. It developed and wanted to perfect itself. For this purpose it embodied itself in physical bodies, shapes, material beings, and the human being, too, came into existence as the perfect replica of the cosmic pattern. In people, therefore, spirit and physical form are joined and continue to develop. Spirit gives birth to physical form, and physical form completes spirit. Together they attain the luminosity and radiance of celestial purity.(11)

However, in people this purity is soon lost–mainly through the development of mind and body. The purity of the spirit is compromised by a limited, personal consciousness that engages in the senses and emotions, described as the mind (xin); the purity of the physical form is destroyed by the increasing power the idea that one is identical with one’s material form and has control over it, described in the literature as the personal body (shen).

The mind, then, is the ruler of the emotions and the seat of knowledge. In the former function it is close to our idea of the heart, in the latter it is very much like what we would define as intellect. In both instances it is above the senses and yet linked to them. It reacts with emotion to the input received from the senses, as the fifth-century Xisheng jing has it: ?When the eyes see something, the mind is agitated? (11.2).(12)

On the basis of sensory input, the conscious mind then develops an abstract knowledge, which in turn has to be communicated and expressed with the help of language and signs, i.e., again through the senses. In both these respects, the emotional and the intellectual, the conscious mind is harmful for the preservation of vital qi and considered useless for cosmic purposes. It can heolp only if properly trained and controlled, and through its powers of active imagination (Vorstellungskraft), which guides the qi smoothly through the body.

Similarly, the personalized body is defined in terms of psychological ego-identity and emotional afflictions. Frequently authors in this context go back and quote the Daode jing, which says:

The personal body is the reason why I have terrible vexations.

If I didn’t have a body, what trouble would I have? (ch. 13)]

This passage is cited in the fifth-century Xisheng jing and interpreted by Li Rong. He says:

Having a personal body means having vexations and adversities.

Frustrated by sight and hearing, tortured by taste and smell, one is subject to pain, irritation, heat, and cold (7.8).

As soon as there is a body the hundred worries compete to arise and the five desires [of the senses] hurry to make their claims (17.8).

Here we find the personal body defined as the conglomerate of the senses. It encompasses the various human sensations and feelings together with the evaluations attached to them and the passions and emotions arising from them. We can therefore understand shen as the ?personal body? or the ?extended self.? The term in this context obviously implies much more than what we mean by ?body,? even though it does neither deny nor replace it. It is still predominantly physical in intention, so that a purely psychological rendering of the term, such as ?identity? or ?personality,? will not suffice.

The conscious mind and the personal body are the reason why people squander their inherent qi and get sick and die early. It is not entirely possible to avoid having some sort of a personal consciousness and identity when alive in the world, but longevity practices, as they are undertaken as part of Qigong Yangsheng, will loosen their power and alleviate the harm they can do. In the long run, however, anyone who wishes to firmly retain his or her inherent qi and even attain a state of immortality, must overcome both of them. An early text describing this is the Zuowang lun (Discourse on Sitting in Oblivion, DZ 1036), which is found first in an inscription dated to 829. It says:

Laozi says: ?If I did not have a body what vexations would I have??

But if one does not have a body and thus returns to annihilation,

shouldn’t that be called the loss of the basis of eternal life?

Yet I answer: What you would call ?not having a body? does not refer to not having this particular physical form. It rather means that the bodily structure is unified with the Great Dao, that one is never influenced by glorious positions and does not seek after speedy advancement. Placidly and without desires, it means to forget that there is this body dependent on all kinds of things.

And, we could add: It means to forget that there is this mind continously craving intellectual pleasures and emotional satisfaction. Both the personal body and the conscious mind, in their close dependence on the senses and the instincts, have to be refined and overcome in favor of a restoration and empowerment of the pure spirit and physical form that we were all born with.

THE SELF

How, then is one to do this? What kind of self-identity and understanding do Daoists propose as the basis for a healthy, extended life and the attainment of immortality?

There are two words for ?self? used in classical Chinese: ji and zi–the two together make up the modern compound ziji.(13) They are clearly distinct: The graph for ji originally represents ?the warp and weft of a loom? and shows ?two threads running transversely and another running lengthwise? (Fazzioli 1986, 34; Wieger 1965, 217). This indicates an organized structure, something one can see on the outside, something that can be made and controlled. Grammatically ji is used primarily in the object position (Dobson 1974, 414-15). One can ?right one’s selfhood,? conduct oneself, compare others to one’s self, and search for humanity or virtue within it.(14) Ji as the self is therefore an object among other objects, it represents an organized person among other people.

In contrast, zi indicates an individual’s spontaneous inner being, the qualities one is endowed with by nature. Like the physical form, the spontaneous self is cosmic. It is the way one is spontaneously, the natural so-being of oneself, the way nature or heaven has made people before they develop ego-consciousness and desires for objects.

The graph goes back to the pictogram, which shows a human nose (Fazzioli 1986, 29; Wieger 1965, 325). The nose is the most protruding part of the face and as such a person’s central characteristic. Still today, people in East Asia point to their noses when they want to indicate themselves. And yet, the nose, however much it represents oneself, cannot be seen or known. One can only guess at the shape of one’s own nose with the help of a mirror. It is something one is equipped with by nature, something one feels and uses, but cannot shape or control. The nose, as the center of oneself, is part of one’s basic makeup; it points back at one’s natural so-being, at the spontaneity of one’s existence.

Grammatically zi is used exclusively in the reflexive position, i.e., before the verb. It never occurs as in the object position (Dobson 1974, 751). Whatever one does, if done by the zi, is done of itself, by the self as a spontaneous, independent organism, not by an organized object-centered self. In this sense, the zi can give rise to an inner feeling of shame, it can have a spontaneous inclination towards good or back fortune, it can develop spontaneous knowledge, or attain true spontaneity within.(15)

These two types of self as defined in traditional Daoism can be related to the modern understanding of the self as proposed by Arthur Deikman. He suggests that people have both an ?object self? and an ?observing self? (1982). According to him, the object self unfolds together with human consciousness, when infants begin by understanding the world through the medium of their bodies and the first abstract, yet humanly fundamental concept emerges that object = body = self (Deikman 1982, 68). One’s very own body, the agent that processes the sense data and translates them into needs and desires, is seen as an object in itself, as one more object from which to receive stimuli and toward which to direct wishes.

Consciousness of the object self can be divided according to three distinct functions: thinking, feeling, and acting. The thinking self contains one’s conception of who and what one is. It is a ?me? defined by society and culture, bound by relativity and the dependence of opposites, based on measurements and comparisons, on the establishement of catergories and classifications. The feeling self contains the emotions: anger, fear, worry, sadness, joy. All these are reactions of feeling toward a given object or objective. They are intimately linked with desire and classify the world according to whether it is at any given moment desirable or undesirable and reacts with feelings and emotions accordingly.

The acting or functional self contains all that we do. It is an awareness of oneself as an acting individual. I know that I do; I realize the capacity I have to act in the world. I feel my body as an instrument of outer activity; I direct my feet and hands, my facial muscles, as well as my vocal chords in a particular direction, producing a particular effect. The acting self manipulates the world around it. It pulls objects and objectives toward it or pushes them away (Deikman 1982, 92-94).

The development of such an object self is a necessary stage of human development, an evolutionary phase that is essential for survival of both individual and culture. On the other hand, as children develop, so evolution proceeds further, and eventually the object self can and must be overcome for the greater attainment of the higher stages of life. These, according to Deikman, are approached when another mode of consciousness is first learned–the ?receptive mode,? a way of perception which diminishes the boundaries between self and world and gives people a sense of merging with the environment (Deikman 1982, 71).

This mode is realized in the observing self. Originally at the center of one’s being, this self is the deep inner root of one’s existence, an ultimate and transcendent sense of being alive within. It is there, yet cannot be consciously known, felt, or manipulated: it cannot be objectified in any way. Rather than thinking, feeling, and doing things actively and with regard to an object, the observing self allows things to happen spontaneously. Instead of as objects, people then see themselves and the world as flowing streams of energy, intensely alive and perfectly individual, yet ultimately interconnected in a cosmic whole. The observing self has no limits; it is transcendent and yet most deeply immanent in all.(16)

Although perception in the receptive mode of consciousness is unifying and free from classification, thinking still takes place. Only, instead of clearcut value judgments and the evaluation of things as objects, there is now a sense of fluidity of values, an openness to other points of views. Similarly, there is still feeling, but there are no emotions that are intrinsically related to the desires of the ego. Rather, emotions are now replaced by compassion, charity, kindliness, and perhaps sadness about the shortcomings of life (Maslow 1964, 82). Also, people in this state still can and do act in the world. But their actions are not based on single-minded categorizations nor on ego-centered emotions.

Instead, they give service to others and hope to aid them in their health and longeivty. In Daoist terms, therefore, people who have realized their observing self flow along with the Dao and live in harmony with themselves and others, never wasting but only nurturing and even increasing their inner qi. This self, moreover, becomes the main stepping stone for the attainment of immortality, the complete dissolution of all personality into the cosmic flow of the Dao, the attainment of oneness with the cosmos and its never-ending life.

QIGONG PRACTICE

The heir to several millennia of Daoist and longevity practices, modern Qigong Yangsheng is also deeply rooted in Daoist worlview (Menschenbild) and the vision of the attainment of immortality. Even though few people today believe in the gods–whether in the stars, on earth, or in the body–and immortality is not a pronounced goal of Qigong, many of its traditional characteristics are valued highly. These characteristics include lightness and freedom of the body, extended longevity, powers of healing (even at a distance),a nd various supernatural faculties. These characteristics and other success attainedin healing and longevity, however, are achieved through the practices only inasmuch as the psychology of the individual is transformed, as he or she learns to be more identical with a continuous flow of qi rather than with a solid, emotion-based mind and body.

The psychological transformation form a solid into a more fluid qi-entity, moreover, as it occurs on the three levels of Qigong and Daoist practice (healing, longevity, immortality), is immediately reflected in the practices. That is to say, certain practices that are useful in healing may be superfluous in the attainment of longevity, while some applicable for immortality may even be harmful when healing is the main focus. Take breathing as a simple example. When healing or extending life, natural deep breathing is emphasized, with the diaphragm expanding on the inhalation.(17)

When moving on to immortality, however, reverted breathing is advised, which means that the diaphragm contracts on the in-breath. Undertaking this kind of reverted breathing too early or at the wrong stage in one’s practice can cause complications, from diiness to disorientation or worse.

Again, the point is made clear in the case of sexual practices. In healing, sexual activity with a partner is encouraged in moderation and measured ways, with both partners reaching regular orgasms. In longevity practice, sexual activity may still be undertaken with a partner, but ejaculation and other loss of body qi is avoided and the sexual stimulation is used to raise the awareness of the positive flow of qi in the body, which is the redirected to relieve stress and increase vitality. Through the practice, as Mantak Chia says, people ?become more aware that all living things are one? (1974, 171). In immortality, finally, sexual practices are undertaken entirely within one’s own body and without a partner. They serve the creation of an immortal embryo through the refinement of the sexual energy jing first into qi, then into cosmic spirit shen. Ni Hua-ching emphasizes accordingly that in advanced attainment sexual energy should not be used to have fun or beget children, but must be sublimated into spiritual energy, which will then give birth to the spiritual embryo and help people to attain the immortal state (1992, 110).(18) He says:

It is hard for people to establish the correct goal of life. Typically people are looking for emotional happiness in the form of lots of pleasure, fun, stimulation or excitement. For spiritual people, it is necessary to avoid pleasure, excitement, stimulation and fun. Actually, those four things have a healthy and unhealthy level. In other words, some fun is all right, because it does not harm your life being. However, even on a healthy level, if fun is overextended, it can become negative and damage your energy being. (Ni 1992, 111)]

Immortality is thus the creation of an inner spirit being and means the avoidance of ordinary joys and excitements. Practices associated with it are not only unsuitable (and probably impossible) for people on the levels of healing and longevity, but may even be harmful if attempted improperly.

The same point, that practices of a similar nature vary significantly among the three levels, can equally be made for diets and fasting, gymnastics and qi-infusion, quiet-sitting and imaginative visualization. Generally Qigong Yangsheng serves to guide people from a wasteful and neglecting attitude to their own bodies and minds towards a more wholesome, healing, and caring way of dealing with themselves. It ?ermoeglicht das bewusste koerperliche Erleben des Zusammenwirkens widerstreitender Kraefte? (von Brunn 1999, 85) and increases the mental awareness of oneself as part of a larger flow of energy which rises and ebbs, comes and goes, moves and halts.

As one reaches a state of mental quietude and greater stability in one’s heath, the practice leads on towards a more encompassing understanding of self and world, which also includes a sense of wonder, of gratitude towards the natural world and the greater universe (see Middendorf 1999, 90). The tense, ego-bound self loosens and a sense of open qi-flow takes its place. Healing moves on to longevity, and as cosmic awareness increases, even to immortality.

NOTES

1. This is reflected in modern Qigong in the emphases placed by Jiao Guorui on the ?Nat?rlichkeit als ?bergeordnetes Prinzip.? See Lienau 1999.

2. I first formulated this outline of the understanding of immortality in traditional Daoism in a review of Ute Engelhardt’s book (1987). See Kohn 1988.

3. A description of this soul, with illustration, is found in Schlicht 1999, 57.

4. Accumulation of qi as the reason why people come to life is already expressed in the Zhuangzi, which says: ?Human life is a coming-together of qi. If it comes together, there is life; if it scatters, there is death? (ch. 22; Watson 1968, 235. For a scholarly discussion of the various early theories of qi and the soul, see Y?u 1987.

5. David Jordan in his anthropological research asserts that, according to Chinese beliefs, the ancestral spirit does not die but dissolves into the qi of the universe at the same rate as the descendants forget the original person of the ancestor. When no one remembers him anymore, he is gone. See Jordan 1972.

6. The modern master Ni Hua-ching speaks about them as the two spheres of spiritual energy. ?One sphere is higher, lighter energy. Even though it uses the foundation of sexual energy, it is light and it has the freedom to fly anywhere. The other kind of spiritual energy is heavy energy, the so-called ghost or sinking energy. It tends to be vulgar or is considered evil? (1992, 110-11).

7. In inner alchemy, this process is described as the creation and ascension of the immortal embryo, which is created from the various internal qi of the person in an alchemically defined cultivation. See Lu 1970; Ni 1992; Robinet 1999.

8. Yongcheng jixian lu (Record of the Host of Immortals of the Walled City, 783), 1.5b.

9. Since the Song, there has been the notion of the celestial treasury, which will provide people with a certain sum at birth. The exhaustion of the funds means the end of life, an overdraft means punishment in hell. See Hou 1975.

10. For details of the immortals’ path and their various forms of ascension, see Kohn 1990.

11. For a more detailed discussion of these concepts, see Kohn 1991.

12. A more extensive discussion of the intimate relation between the eyes and the mind as seen in traditional Daoism, is found in a treatise by Wu Yun (d. 778), called ?On Mind and Eyes.? See Kohn 1998. The importance of the eyes is also emphasized in modern Qigong literature, notably by Jiao Guorui. See Hildenbrand 1999, 10.

13. For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see Kohn 1992.

14. These expressions are found in classical literature, e.g., Mengzi 2A.7, Lunyu 5.15, 13.20, 1.8.

15. These expressions occur in Lunyu 12.23, Mengzi 2A.4, Zhuangzi, chs. 4, 15.

16. The observing self as Deikman describes it is in many ways similar to Abraham Maslow’s concept of Being-cognition. Being-cognition is the opposite of Deficiency-cognition. Where the latter is constantly aware of something missing, something needed, the former is content and calm, receptive as it were, and merely observing. See Maslow 1964, 83.

17. The importance of natural breathing is also emphasized by Jiao Guorui. See Middendorf 1999.

18. This practice goes back to traditional inner alchemy. In women, it meant that the reservoire of qi in the breast area is no longer depleted through menstruation, but kept intact. Menstruation ceases (the decapitation of the red dragon), and the growing qi energy can be converted into an internal spirit embryo. See Despeux 1990.

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