(Physiological) Alchemy and TCMA

[Ian]

I think the problem is a lot of practitioners who don't buy the spiritual/physical route imagine that this substituted for the actual hard physical training. I don't believe that for one moment the "spiritual" phase serves as a substitute for this physical/training focus.

QFTMFT

Unfortunately, our mythology is shaped by the 60s embrace of the East and its protrayal via the "hippie" archetype image and perhaps this is often encountered in many of the New Age taiji schools

Although I'm sure I've been influenced by the Western take on martial arts to some degree, I was born and raised in and around Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China. But even in East Asia, there are still plenty of people who spend far too much time learning the theory, being clever, and outright sucking.

And to further exacerbate the situation, some people claim that it's ALL supposed to be meditative, spiritual, religious, and martial skill is a somehow a lesser pursuit. That's as stupid as me saying it's ALL supposed to be about beating your opponent to a pulp.

The pendulum swings to either extreme, but one hopes sooner or later it'll settle in the center. In the meantime, it's convenient to construct straw men such as the TCMA turned MMA roid freak whose only goals are victory in the ring and being able to punch his way out of petty arguments. As if anyone's that basic

Not levelling this critique against you, Bob. As I said, I agree with what you're saying.

[DeusTrismegistus]

Ian, what you posed as a simple question regarding external/internal reality requires a complex articulation whether its done as a poetic description, scientific description, and/or both. I wanted to show, by illustration of the simplest concepts of the Yi Jing, how that might be embraced and looked at. Clearly an illiterate master might not provide an indepth answer but in terms of Yin Yang concepts and body/breath movements, they clearly understood this.

My grandpa surprised me a couple months ago when he started talking about planting by the signs, and what phase the moon should be in etc. He only has a 7th grade education but grew up farming in the hills of virginia. Many new astrology students wouldn't have a clue how the signs and the moon would apply to planting gardens and fields but my grandpa does, even though he wouldnt know what an asdendant sign is to save his life.

[DeusTrismegistus]

Alchemy, enlightenment, and spirituality only arise in cultures and individuals whose basic survival needs are met.

various forms of "witchcraft" or "shamanism", usually involving music, some sort of dance, often involving plants, and often involving concepts of "spiritual power", seem to have been a fundamental part of all tribal cultures throughout human history.

Just because a culture is tribal doesn't mean that they haven't reached a point where they can spend time on things other than basic survival needs.

[johnwang]

Every household literate or illiterate were embued with the concepts of the Yi Jing through collective Emperor mandated rituals, traveling diviners, and the experience and understanding of the cycle of seasonal change

Both LF and SC are popular in Chinese Moslim region. I don't think those Moslim CMA masters care much about Yi Jing. As far as I can remember, I have never heard my teacher mentioned Yi Jing through his life.

[Sprint]

Every household literate or illiterate were embued with the concepts of the Yi Jing through collective Emperor mandated rituals, traveling diviners, and the experience and understanding of the cycle of seasonal change

Both LF and SC are popular in Chinese Moslim region. I don't think those Moslim CMA masters care much about Yi Jing. As far as I can remember, I have never heard my teacher mentioned Yi Jing through his life.

So that would be about 28 million people really wont get what it is you are trying to say

[shawnsegler]

I just realized that I no longer have any emotion invested in this discussion at all.

S

[kreese]

Question for y'all: What are the necessary elements for your TCMA practice to make it Physical Alchemy? Internal focus? "feeling" your body? quieting the mind? (<-- my main ingredient), relaxation?

I think a serious discussion of exactly *what* makes our practice alchemical (a word? it is now!) would benefit newbs and experienced alike. I think we might find a lot of common ground. I hope...

[I-mon]

OK the process of daoist internal alchemy seems to always be described as transforming jing into qi, qi into shen, and shen into void (also how Li Cun Yi described the stages of transformation according to the 3 stages of xingyiquan). shen is the basis of spirit (more or less, i don't really know so i'll keep this as simple as i can), qi is the basis of movement, jing is the basis of physical substance. evolution is believed to have evolved out of void, into spirit, then qi, finally into substance. daoist practice is about "returning to the source".

i don't really think the term alchemy is particularly useful in general conversation, but i guess this is a thread about alchemy...

my own take on how this relates to practice is that i begin with awareness of the physical body, feeling the actual body parts themselves as chunks of matter.

with more practice the feeling of chunks of matter changes into awareness of physical processes occuring. awareness of matter turns into awareness of the movement within matter, and that matter itself is actually movement.

then there is awareness of the effect of mental activity on the body, and of the body on the mental activity.

of course there's also awareness of the effect of awareness of the mental activity, on the mental activity!


so what i'm describing is common experience of the practice of vipassana (buddhist) meditation, which is the foundation of my practice. any daoist stuff i've learned i've related back to my vipassana practice, and since vipassana is purely an awareness practice, my take on the daoist alchemy stuff is like this. i don't think i'm too far off in describing the above as an experiential awareness of the interrelationships of jing-qi-shen.

maybe that helps a little bit.

[kreese]

I-mon,

Yeah, my first few years of practicing wuji were all about awareness. I also read Relaxing Into Your Being and incorporated what I could of the Outer Dissolving process. Can't say I can necessarily feel physical processes, but I can feel the difference between stagnant and flowing qi. As for mental activity, I find it easier to do sitting, but of course the physical challenge of standing adds a nice element to the mental training.

So, step #1: jing -> qi. What's that all about?

[I-mon]

in my analogy it's the developement from awareness of physical substance (jing) into awareness of physical processes (qi).

[johnwang]

I just realized that I no longer have any emotion invested in this discussion at all.

I never had emotion on this subject. To me, spiritual development is what you do and not what you talk. Many people said, "I practice Dao or I practice Buddism". It's personal thing and nothing to talk about. If the word "fighting is low level" didn't appear in this thread, I won't even bother to get involve with this discussion.

[xingyijuan]

I agree with John. The whole point of spiritual involvement in martial arts is not even disputed. What is shitty though, if you take that away, the whole point of the original poster comes down to "my practice is better than your practice".

[shawnsegler]

[quote]"my practice is better than your practice"./quote]

there's a lot of that going around in martial arts.

S- just sayin

[Walter Joyce]

[I never had emotion on this subject. To me, spiritual development is what you do and not what you talk. Many people said, "I practice Dao or I practice Buddism". It's personal thing and nothing to talk about. If the word "fighting is low level" didn't appear in this thread, I won't even bother to get involve with this discussion.

I agree to an extent that saying fighting skills is low level as it relates to martial arts is incorrect.

If you are asking the question: "Rate the level of effectiveness of the different methods to resolve human conflicts?" I would agree that fighting is a low level method of resolving human conflicts.

I think Miro was trying, perhaps in a clumsy fashion, to open a discussion regarding other aspects of IMA. I don't think the point of his thread was say my style is better than yours, although I can see that as a valid interpretation given what Miro wrote.

As someone else said, the mixture of spiritual training and training to fight will vary from practitioner to practitioner along a continuum ranging from all fighting no spiritual content to the other end of all spiritual content and no fighting, and each will choose their own mix, and each mix should be respected.

I agree that spirituality is a controversial topic, like politics and family, that can easily trigger intense reactions if not handled delicately.

All in all, I believe Miro's intentions were good, but could have started off more diplomatically.

[johnwang]

All in all, I believe Miro's intentions were good, but could have started off more diplomatically.

If Miro started off more diplomatically then we won't have 9 pages of discussion. He may get a couple of "good post" or "I'll second that" and that will be all. Many threads die just because it started off diplomatically and nothing to argue about.