Ep251: Taoist Inner Alchemy - Mattias Daly 2

Summary

In this episode, Guru Viking is joined by Matias Daly, a DST practitioner and translator, to discuss the fascinating world of Taoist Inner Alchemy. Daly recounts his journey to China and experiences with influential mentors, such as meeting Abis Liu at a remote monastery. They dive into DST Inner Alchemy practices, touching on meditation, psychic powers, and the historical evolution of internal alchemy within the Taoist tradition. Throughout the conversation, Daly explores the balance between scholarly pursuits and personal practice, sharing insights into the golden elixir and emphasizing spiritual transformation over physical immortality.

Highlights

• Matias Daly shares his transformative journey in Taoist Inner Alchemy and meditation experiences in China 🧘‍♂️.
• He details his meeting with influential mentor Abis Liu and how it shaped his practice 🤝.
• The discussion covers the complex history and practice of DST Inner Alchemy, explaining its intricate spiritual nuances 📜.
• Daly addresses misconceptions about physical immortality in Taoism, highlighting the spiritual essence of the practice ✨.
• The episode highlights a balance between engaging with ancient Taoist texts and practical meditative practices 📖.

Key Takeaways

• Matias Daly shares his intriguing journey into Taoist Inner Alchemy, highlighting transformative meditation experiences 🎎.
• Daly emphasizes the importance of scholarly knowledge combined with personal practice to truly understand Taoist texts 📚.
• The episode discusses how Inner Alchemy is about unveiling inherent spirituality rather than seeking physical immortality 🌌.
• Daly recounts mystical encounters and the powerful influence of his mentor, Abis Liu, enhancing his meditation practices 🌿.
• Inner Alchemy involves an internal blend of spiritual and physical practices aimed at achieving a deep spiritual alignment 🌱.

Overview

Join Guru Viking as he chats with Matias Daly, an accomplished DST practitioner, in a riveting exploration of Taoist Inner Alchemy. Daly shares his unique journey from humble beginnings in China to advancing his practice under the guidance of revered mentor Abis Liu. This episode dives deep into the art of meditation and magical practices, shedding light on Daly’s experiences and spiritual discoveries.

In this engaging discussion, Daly emphasizes the importance of combining scholarly pursuits with personal meditation practices. He explores the essence of the golden elixir, demystifying Taoist concepts, and uniting it with practical transformational insights. The conversation unveils the nature of inner alchemy as a spiritual revelation, instead of the pursuit of physical immortality, encouraging listeners to delve deeper into their spiritual practices.

This episode gives a comprehensive overview of the history and evolution of DST Inner Alchemy, as Daly draws connections between ancient texts and modern practices. Offering a fresh perspective on the spiritual goals of inner alchemy, Daly’s insights illuminate the path for listeners looking to enhance their spiritual practice and understanding of Taoism.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Guest Welcome In this chapter, the host is joined by Matias Daly, a DST practitioner and translator of 'DST Inner Alchemy'. Matias shares an intriguing story about his journey to a remote monastery where he met Abis Liu, who started him on intensive meditation training. They delve into discussions about DA's meditation and its connection to magical powers and psychic abilities.
• 00:30 - 02:00: Early Experiences and Training This chapter titled 'Early Experiences and Training' delves into Matias's meditation experiences and the history and evolution of DST inner Alchemy. It references classical texts to contextualize and explain the concept of the golden Elixir and discusses differing ideas about the goals of alchemy and the various methods of practicing it. The chapter portrays an enlightening conversation with Matias, who shares his insights and knowledge with enthusiasm.
• 02:00 - 03:30: Meeting Abis Liu and Initial Impressions The chapter explores the protagonist's return to the United States after spending nine years in China where they mastered the language and various arts. They reached a plateau in their training, compelling them to return to the U.S. to focus on core fundamentals of internal Alchemy Arts with a friend. Their journey of overcoming the bottleneck and refining their skills is a primary focus of this chapter.
• 03:30 - 05:00: Helping a Troubled Young Man The narrator reflects on a significant six-month period spent training in the US, where they experienced a breakthrough in their practice. During this time, they met an influential ABS teacher and attended several retreats. The chapter promises further exploration of the narrator's journey beyond this initial progress, hinting at more developments and insights gained from those pivotal experiences.
• 05:00 - 06:00: Experiences in Meditation Retreats The chapter titled 'Experiences in Meditation Retreats' begins with a discussion on the various insights gained from internal martial arts training. The narrator recounts their experience meeting Abis Leo of the Sanin Kong, or Three Purities Monastery, during a visit in 2012 while they were living in Shanghai. Their narrative highlights a personal journey and learning process rather than focusing explicitly on DST Alchemy.
• 06:00 - 08:00: Formal Meditation Instructions and Their Simplicity The chapter discusses an individual's encounter with a remarkable teacher during the National Day holiday. The teacher made a significant impression due to her strong presence, warmth, relatability, and immense enthusiasm for teaching. Originally starting her life as a Buddhist, she later became a practitioner of Daoism. The chapter likely explores the significance of this encounter and possibly delves into formal meditation instructions or their simplicity, as suggested by the chapter title.
• 08:00 - 11:00: Views on Powers and Abilities in Daoism The chapter discusses the integration of teachings from both Chan Buddhism and Daoism, particularly focusing on the concept of 'Wu Wei' or 'non-doing.' It mentions the connection between these teachings and those of a figure referred to as 'L.' The speaker reflects on a notable individual's influence and their personal interactions or relationship with this person, although details of this relationship are not fully provided in the transcript.
• 11:00 - 13:00: Spirit Realm and Future Topics This chapter delves into the narrator's experiences in 2011, where they describe a period of living covertly in China without a valid visa. Despite the precariousness of the situation, the narrator managed to maintain a low profile, with even friends unaware of their presence in the country. During this time, the narrator was involved in various odd jobs to sustain themselves while planning to return to Chinese medicine school after a year-long break for recovery. The narrative hints at broader topics such as the spirit realm and future intentions, which form the thematic backbone of the chapter.
• 13:00 - 15:00: Translation Work and Historical Context In this chapter, the narrator reflects on a period of time spent in relative solitude, primarily due to the necessity of maintaining a low profile to prevent their university from finding out their situation and potentially cancelling their visa. The solitude was spent productively, engaging in activities such as martial arts, reading, and enhancing their Chinese language skills. Eventually, when the risk of exposure lessened, the narrator felt more liberated to relax their guard.
• 15:00 - 18:00: History and Evolution of Inner Alchemy The narrator recounts their experience volunteering at a martial arts school in Shanghai, managed by a student named Chongyang. The school also operates as a Chinese medicine clinic and a traditional culture school. During their time there, the narrator was tasked with helping subtitle videos made by the school. Additionally, they learned about a Taiwanese astrology teacher visiting the school and decided to attend their session. The chapter touches upon interactions with different cultures and practices, including Buddhism.
• 18:00 - 22:00: Misinterpretations and Symbolism in Texts The chapter "Misinterpretations and Symbolism in Texts" explores a narrative involving a monk who descends from his mountain to seek someone for a task. The speaker shares their own skepticism about the authenticity of such stories, comparing it to clichéd tales of Westerners visiting Asia and concocting exaggerated stories. The speaker humorously reflects on being the monk's second choice, revealing that the monk originally sought someone else but was unable to convince them, thus turning to the speaker as a backup option.
• 22:00 - 27:00: Concept of Golden Elixir and Alchemical Symbolism In this chapter, a person recounts a story involving Brian McMahon, a respected acupuncturist with an online presence, who rejected a Buddhist pun. The narrator, with nothing else to do, got involved in an unusual situation to assist a young man, aged 18 or 19, who had left his wealthy family.
• 27:00 - 30:00: Practical Insights and Meditation Practices The chapter discusses a young man's experiences with the Chinese distilled spirit industry and his mental health struggles. The young man, who had distanced himself from his family, suffered from severe mental afflictions. The chapter critiques the limited and daunting mental health options available in China, reflecting on broader global challenges in mental health care.
• 30:00 - 32:00: Conclusion and Future Conversations The chapter titled "Conclusion and Future Conversations" discusses the ethical dilemma faced by the narrator in attempting to support a young man in Shanghai through a difficult time. The young man's parents were desperate for help after unsuccessful attempts with various psychiatrists, including foreign doctors. They appealed to the narrator, who had a previous connection with their son through international schooling, to engage with him under the guise of a coincidental meeting. This situation posed significant ethical conflicts, as it would be inappropriate for a psychiatrist or doctor to proceed this way. The chapter reflects on the complexities and moral challenges of acting in desperation when traditional routes have failed, and suggests the need for ongoing conversations about ethical considerations in mental health support.

Ep251: Taoist Inner Alchemy - Mattias Daly 2 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 in this episode I am once again joined by Matias Daly DST practitioner and translator of DST inner Alchemy published by Shambala matius recounts the unusual circumstances that saw him travel to a remote Monastery to meet abis Liu under whom he would begin intensive training in meditation Matias discusses DA's meditation and its relationship to magical powers psychic abilities and other unus usual
• 00:30 - 01:00 meditation experiences Matias then pulls back the veil to reveal the history and evolution of DST inner Alchemy referencing classical texts to contextualize and explain the golden Elixir differing ideas of the goal of alchemy and the various ways in which the practice was undertaken so without further Ado Matias daily Matias da welcome back to the podcast thank you happy to be here I'm so delighted to be
• 01:00 - 01:30 talking with you today in the last episode we discussed a part of your life story the earlier Parts we're at the stage where you had come back from 9 years in China Having learned the language and trained in many various Arts but you felt you'd reached a bottleneck in your in your practice and training so you came back to the States and trained there with a friend uh focusing on some core fundamentals of internal Alchemy Arts and there you felt
• 01:30 - 02:00 you were able to make progress that's where we got to so I know that there is quite some story still to come uh you met an ABS teacher who had become very influential for you you went on many Retreats Etc so I'm curious if you could pick the story up from those 6 months in the US where you trained and you'd broken through a kind of bottleneck in your practice well to be honest that six-month period I was only really
• 02:00 - 02:30 referencing training uh what my friend and I had gleaned from our separate but kind of parallel Paths of internal martial arts training um but I I wouldn't say that that was specific to DST Alchemy um I had met abis Leo of the sanin Kong or three purities Monastery in um gilen province in 2012 when I was still living in Shanghai and uh I visited her over the October
• 02:30 - 03:00 National Day holiday I had a week off and um immediately was extremely impressed with her presence um her warmth her down toess her absolute sort of um just insurmountable enthusiasm for teaching uh I I guess uh from a Buddhist standpoint because she started her life as a Buddhist actually she became a daone later in life
• 03:00 - 03:30 uh prap paramita teachings that are a major part of Chan Buddhism as well as uh what she would refer to as W the great of non-doing or W which she um very clearly believes is is uh a way of cultivation that traces back to the teachings of L in the I'm wondering if you might say something about your relationship with her how it was you met uh what it is she
• 03:30 - 04:00 taught you the sorts of things you pursued under her guidance this is another very long very convoluted story I will try to make it short uh in 2011 I was sort of hiding in China without a Visa I wasn't supposed to be there I was keeping very lowkey not even my friends knew I was there because IID left the country for a while and come back on a Visa That was supposed to have been cancelled I was just doing odd jobs to make money while I waited to go back to Chinese medicine school I was taking a year off uh to recover from peritan I
• 04:00 - 04:30 um it was a good time actually I spent a lot of time doing martial arts and because I couldn't let most of my friends know I was around I was afraid somebody would Spill the Beans uh it made me spend a lot of time alone which I I used a lot of that time cultivating reading books working on my Chinese and so on and so forth um and at some point uh I once my cover was kind of blown and I figured it was late enough that I could um not not keep hiding for fear of my univers University canceling my Visa I
• 04:30 - 05:00 was volunteering at a at a martial arts school it's actually run by reang student chongyang in Shanghai uh and I was just volunteering to help them put subtitles on some videos they had made um and the proprius of this um martial arts studio SL now it's a Chinese medicine clinic as well as well as a they call it traditional culture school um told me that her Taiwanese astrology teacher was going to be in town Al okay I'll go listen um and then this Buddhist
• 05:00 - 05:30 monk approached me in the break and said I'm looking for you I've come down from my Mountain because I'm seeking you to take care of a task and I love this part of the story because it sounds so pompous and uh and and um improbable and most likely yet another one of those white boy went to Asia came back and made a bunch of stories lies uh but I was actually his plan B I only found this out much later it was he had come off the mountain looking for another guy and failed to convince him to get into
• 05:30 - 06:00 this uh plot the other guy's called Brian McMahon he's a he's quite a respected acupuncturist um with a web pre presence so this can all be confirmed he rejected this budhist pun flat out like no man um and I kind of had nothing better to do and I got roped into this crazy scheme to help out the Wayward Son about 18 or 19 years old he kind of run away from home from a very wealthy family that had made big bucks in the um
• 06:00 - 06:30 liquor business bio in specific very strong Chinese uh distilled Spirit which I I actually like a lot of people foreigners absolutely Lo this stuff um and this uh young man had kind of broken with his family and was suffering from some pretty severe uh mental afflictions and had the Chinese Med medical systems mental health um options like many countries are pretty uh scary and limited and he had
• 06:30 - 07:00 been through a number of Psychiatry uh situations in Shanghai including with foreign doctors and hadn't had luck and his parents were at the wit's end and they asked me because their son had grown up in international schools would I be willing to try to befriend him but pretending that this was all serendipitous I mean this is really if if I were a psychiatrist or doctor this is very unethical on the other hand it was kind of like his family was at wit's end this monk
• 07:00 - 07:30 had tried some Chinese medicine doctors had tried they'd even kidnapped him at some point and sent him to kind of a private boot camp thing which just made the situation worse and I agreed and I started going to visit the hotel where the the guy was living um he he rose generally at 10 or 11: p.m. um and he was he was very far gone uh with mental mental afflictions maybe spiritual AFF afflictions and all I could do was my best was to I try to encourage him to
• 07:30 - 08:00 get outside get some sun eat some proper food rather than just one bowl of instant noodles in a Gatorade once a day was about all he was consuming uh I don't want to go into too many details just in case anybody ever puts it together who this is I don't want to reveal everything about him but I was a little bit afraid of the young man at first until I realized he was harmless and after months of trying to get through to him I really felt I was at a loss but his father uh just kept having you know his father was very much like no this is going to help this is going
• 08:00 - 08:30 to help at least there's one person in his life who's talking to him and after several months of this one day I had returned to medical school at that point um in Shanghai this is before I transferred to the school in Beijing uh I get a phone call from his father one evening and he's like I need you to go to the hotel where my son lives tonight and I was like no I have a test tomorrow or something like that and he like just begging me begging me I'm like look I can't do it and and finally I was just like what is the big deal why tonight his yesterday was like his day before yesterday he's been the same for a month
• 08:30 - 09:00 I'm sure fine if I don't see him tonight and he says no no no one of the managers of one of my distilleries in G in jilan province which is a long way from Shanghai he had distilleries all over China had uh told him that there was a DST nun of high high accomplishment and great compassion who was going to do a ritual for him because it was going to be the the sort of Buddhist birthday of the Wang the bhis in trans I believe
• 09:00 - 09:30 it'sa who is said to rescue Souls from hell and this kind of shows the way in which in Chinese religion Buddhism and DSM are very mixed together of course there are some da who would say why would you pray that dang strange your Dallas but generally speaking there's a lot more I don't know ecumenical or eclectic would be the right word so his father kind of brow beat me into going um and I went and S sitting in a hallway out of his son's hotel room expecting
• 09:30 - 10:00 nothing kind of just like at least I'm getting paid sort of attitude and his son comes out and he's got like light in his eyes he walks straight towards me sits down slaps me on the knee and this was a a kid who up till then like getting him to brush his teeth was sometimes like a 30 minute like he just absolutely had no oomph no life energy no I mean he he was very depressed tell you himself not only did he not necessarily want to be alive he felt that he was already dead I think he was
• 10:00 - 10:30 living in a very dissociated State and so for this guy to come out with spring in his step shocked me sits down next to me he's like Matas I have to tell you something and then we always spoke in English um he he preferred not to speak Chinese um I said oh what what I'm really kind of shocked you want to tell me something um and he's like I've decided that I this precious human body and this precious human life and I can't waste it if I ever want to get better I got to start getting up when the Sun rises I can't be sleeping till 10: p.m. I I got to stop filling my stomach with
• 10:30 - 11:00 junk I got to eat proper food and bare minimum I should go for a walk every day and I should start exercising this is the only way I'm ever going to have any chance of turning my life around and I'm sitting there like so happy because I've been tell telling him to do all this stuff for months now no no effect and I was like oh who who gave you this idea waiting and expecting him to you know for him to thank me I'm like waiting for it you know and he's he's like looks at me like I'm an idiot he's like it's my idea like are you serious
• 11:00 - 11:30 man um and anyway like similar things happened a couple of times when his father would tell me you got to get to the hotel tonight they're doing a big ritual up there it's going to help my son I was extremely skeptical to the point of thinking this was ludicrous originally even though I have an interest in spirituality that goes back several years before that it still the notion that people provinces away in China's far Northeast near the border with Korea would be able to bang on some
• 11:30 - 12:00 you know wooden fish and drums and bells and chant some words and it would affect this guy remotely um but it kept happening and so finally I booked a ticket up to visit the monastery and in fact what's interesting is like after telling that story it's like oh well did she let you know when I met her did I she levitate towards me on a cloud and tell me I was the one or or that she was the one who no it was actually what was really striking was just how the temple was kind of remote a little bit ramshackle very quiet very
• 12:00 - 12:30 peaceful and the people were just super down to earth and felt kind of like not quite grandmotherly you know I think abis sort of age-wise a bit older than my mom like older in between my mom and my grandmother's Generations but that sort of just like welcome home you look too skinny you should eat sort of attitude coupled
• 12:30 - 13:00 with very profound insights into Buddhist and da teachings very clearly based on an entire lifetime of meditation um oh and in the back room of their kitchen they also had a mummified corpse who was epis Leo's master who passed away seated and sort of desiccated um so there was a bit of I guess magic and mystery as well but um that yeah that's that was a bit of
• 13:00 - 13:30 down to earth a bit of out there mixed together yeah that's fascinating and so what was the training with her what did it entail uh she taught me nothing at first um she was just pleased to know that I meditated and did Jan Jong and um uh let's see about eight or nine months later I traveled to Gan to visit for a week and abis L just kept saying stay for another week stay for another week and it turned
• 13:30 - 14:00 into three weeks uh plus another week in the city where I was uh helping out the young man I was just I just mentioned I eventually was able to convince him almost fooled him to spend some time in the monastery uh so he could be closer to abis Leo and everybody just felt that this might be sort of good for his his energy field so to speak um and and he stayed for months and he eventually I mean he really made a pretty full recovery and ended up going to college years later it took a long time um and
• 14:00 - 14:30 I've kind of fallen out of touch but an incredible story and and an incredible effort on his part too it's not like the dsts just wave a magic wand and that's it I mean it's a he has a lot of put on a lot um but anyway that that summer abis Leo got a a fellow who's kind of um a Layman but living full-time in a monastery uh to help out so that I could have meals twice a day in my room um and
• 14:30 - 15:00 this allowed me to meditate for six hours in twoh hour blocks every day uninterrupted for three whole weeks uh the rest of the time I was free to wander around in the woods or take meals Outdoors practice martial arts chat with people um but every day for six hours in these three two hour blocks I did sit and I hadn't received a single teaching from abis though is just trying to sit still and uh I nearly went I didn't nearly go crazy it was very very
• 15:00 - 15:30 challenging like by the last session at the end of the three weeks I was so ready to leave I could barely stay seated alone in my room it was just like the energy was just like oh my God this is been um an amazing but very very hard experience and you know no one there's that energy I've been in one going of a passing the retreat there's that energy that comes when you're in a room full of people and there's an lished sitter at
• 15:30 - 16:00 the front of the room and there's a very different energy when you're alone in a Cell um I guess perhaps abis L was kind of observing me and uh I think it was about two years after that she finally gave me actual meditation instructions I I forly became her disciple at some point and then a winter or two after that I think it was 2015 um she transmitted meditation instruction to me formally and I've been practicing with
• 16:00 - 16:30 those ever since and they're very simple they are very very simple meditation instructions um as as you would expect from somebody who's refers to the her teachings as the W the great th W it is really um very very very simple are those instructions something you can share in this context I a solemn vow not to talk about them I apologize so probably very annoying no
• 16:30 - 17:00 no quality necessary at all very interesting indeed are you able to talk about your uh experiences or the outcome if you like or the results the fruits of following these particular instructions or training under this ABS I have had all manner of interesting bells and whistles internal physical Sensations maybe ches Sensations sometimes in the dantean sometimes in the spine
• 17:00 - 17:30 maybe the governor Meridian area um but interestingly like both from my own experience as well as from things that you see in books and that other D practitioners constantly remind is that you just don't get caught up in them and I was very caught up in them I was in Chinese medicine school I wanted to be able to feel all my meridians and my acup points and close my eyes and see them and my organs with my eyes shut I had actually had some experiences like
• 17:30 - 18:00 that in my teams uh with meditation and those were very good I guess in one sense that they you know lit a certain fuse or you know pushed certain dominoes down that went chasing in that direction but also that became a strong uh attachment and a fantasy of wanting these glimmers that I had had to become stable abilities um and it took a long time to gradually let that aspect of my my psychology sort of dissolve I guess
• 18:00 - 18:30 um and I don't think I've reached any sort of plateau where I have something worth talking about where yeah I mean like I could sit here just make a list of every wild Chi experience I've had but I really don't think they're that important to be honest and I think the real thing as boring as it is is
• 18:30 - 19:00 becoming aware of your own awareness um developing a certain inner quietude that gives you space to not be as reactive a person in your relationships uh as well as when You Face Elation and tribulation these sorts of thousands of spiritual books have them and those are the pages we skip over trying to get to the twoy parts probably right um sorry you were hoping DM was more
• 19:00 - 19:30 exciting than Buddhism came to the wrong guy yeah well speaking of the juicy Parts they apparently juicy Parts anyway although I think what you just said is very juicy indeed you mentioned this uh Power that can come City Power maybe we might call it that uh that can come Clairvoyance clar audience ritual power power over Spirits Etc sort of thing healing uh all different things of course Chinese Arts are famous as are
• 19:30 - 20:00 the IND indic ones for these kinds of powers uh on the internet there are many videos of people setting paper on fire and doing things like that in the old stories there are also many examples I wonder how in the particular types of DSM you've been exposed to I wonder how these particular powers are viewed are they seen as something that naturally arise from as as one becomes more advanced or are they uh as I've heard elsewhere things that can be specifically cultivated for example
• 20:00 - 20:30 doing a certain set of exercises to cultivate a certain type of capacity um how are these viewed in the types of dim that you've been exposed to I think a lot of that stuff to be honest is heavily influenced by Chinese martial arts novels um which are not a new phenomenon they have hundreds of years of history I mean if you go back to the Ming Dynasty a quote unquote martial arts novel might only be three pages long if you but you know these short stories I I studied one last year um you know there's they're not that much different from your average
• 20:30 - 21:00 kung fu movie up today or or whatever John clab fland I guess John clad vanm doesn't really do magic but you know um avatar the Last air bender right um and uh by which I mean to say I've noticed something which is that in DST certain D circles both in China and in English speaking world and in person as well as in print and online in all of those Realms you can encounter
• 21:00 - 21:30 certain people who are like oh dosm can learn lead to all sorts of um spiritual cities and Powers but you have to not be sidetracked by them but by the way here's a whole list of them right and then when you press people like well where's the guy who can actually do that it's either oh he's on a mountain or in reclusion he doesn't like to see people but he's my master and I'm not at his level yet but my one like spiritual elder brother wants saw him shoot flame out of his tongue and you know I'm going
• 21:30 - 22:00 to see it someday in anyway don't be attached to that stuff and then get kind of mad at you for even asking you're like you're the you're the guy who's talking about it or it becomes like oh the Ancients Were Somehow essentially different than us we're in the the morash she the Dharma ending age which D was used this term plenty as well and a few hundred or a few thousand years ago humans were of just an entirely different caliber and it was totally normal for people to levitate and like I think if you listen carefully
• 22:00 - 22:30 when people start going down those paths even though nine times out of 10 they're telling you not to get involved in cities there's this weird sort of psychology where they're actually sort of acting like cities a are real and B are a likely occurrence if you meditate long enough and um see people that either they know or one or two degrees separated way from them either by time or relationships actually have these whereas my feeling after years of wandering is the very few of these things are actually real at all
• 22:30 - 23:00 um and so the admonition like don't get caught up in cities because they're real and that's a pitfall I think offense should be changed to don't get caught up in cities because that has really that's probably fake it's probably never going to happen to you it happened to some guy's uncle in wherever who you can't go meet just like when I was in kindergarten I had this classmate who said he had three Nintendos but they were in his and his dad wouldn't let me go up and see him
• 23:00 - 23:30 and I kind of believed it but I kind of didn't I think there's a relationship there and I personally think although I have witnessed some very miraculous stuff my feeling is that those things tend to happen spontaneously by something that using English we might borrow a Christian term and say it's kind of like Grace uh and they might be more likely to happen through a certain person because of that person's duh their virtue for example when there's a ritual master
• 23:30 - 24:00 who has real virtue and real ability but again the ritual is beseeching higher plane of beings theoretically to intercede it's not at least with what I've been exposed to the master doing something it's the master asking for help from some form of life that is not bound by the same rules that we flesh and blood human beings mostly are um I mean there's this uh guy jinong this
• 24:00 - 24:30 um Hong Kong Kung Fu novelist who's extremely influential in 20th century people still read his stuff uh Legend of condor Heroes is adapted kung fu movie adapted from one of his books and he also wrote these crazy novels were all the trenen dsts of the early Generations the first three generations from Wang chongyang and madang yangang and chti blah blah blah these were actually these wandering Knights errant who were getting into battles and using their magic and getting into these these
• 24:30 - 25:00 romances sexy little romances where these people were like kind of a lot of them were quite elderly became DS practitioners quite late in life especially For What the lifespans were back eight 900 years ago and I've read their stuff they were not they just weren't doing this stuff but unfortunately it's like it's as though somebody had wrote some really um bestselling novels 50 years ago about
• 25:00 - 25:30 Jesus and his 12 disciples uh also being Jedis and that some you go to another you then went to China and encountered people who were interested in Christianity that they were mostly learning about through what they could find online and the wires had gotten crossed and you're trying to tell people it's just the New Testament if you want to learn about Jesus and they're like no no no Jesus also had Thor's hammer I read about and and I'm going to cultivate
• 25:30 - 26:00 Christianity because I want Thor's powers and you're like oh so yes sorry another comp yes that's fascinating and that leads us to the subject which I think we'll sa for another episode of the spirit realm links to experiences in New Zealand of possession and uh exotism and so on of course that's a subset of the greater theme of the spirit realm key in Tradition Medical Systems as well as religious systems so perhaps we'll could
• 26:00 - 26:30 pick pick that thread up in a future conversation focus on that yeah um well let's turn to the book DST inner Alchemy is a translation as we discussed in the previous episode of Professor Go's commentary on 10 chapters of hangan G's the oral record of the whole of joyous teaching yeah now I wonder if you might Orient us as to who Juan yanji was uh
• 26:30 - 27:00 what his oral record of the Hall of Joy teaching is and how this commentary fits into that whole picture uh so hangi was alive in the uh 1800s um and I think is said of passed away sort of mid to late 1800s uh is thought to have been from jangu Province and to have ended up in sitan Province uh so from the southeast kind of to the southwest of China and this was a time time of uh a lot of
• 27:00 - 27:30 migration to Citron and it was also a time of uh spiritual foment there there were quite a few active lineages uh that were uh associated with thst internal practice that were um not limited to monastic practitioners but that were open to uh the public in some way and we also printing quite a lot of books and um Sichuan at this time sort of because there was this excess of Highly Educated
• 27:30 - 28:00 people in the Eastern provinces but insufficient government jobs for them um then people who might have if they had been able to fulfill their dreams uh stayed in the seat of power in China and worked as a minister ended up in places like Sichuan running printing presses and book shops um instead because they were they were very highly educated uh part of the literate class and some of them joined these DST cultivation groups
• 28:00 - 28:30 um as well that were that were not meant for monks they were meant for Lay people um and we don't know who hang's master was he wrote Somewhere that he searched for 10 years before he found one who transmitted the internal Alchemy teachings to him and he said apparently that he was in Citron looking for friends in the da um and he passed through wherever the Hall of Joy teaching was and stayed and listened to lecture there and he was impressed with the teacher and began to have some back
• 28:30 - 29:00 and forth with that person not documented who it was um and it was clear to the people at that institution that he knew his stuff just from the questions he was asking I guess and the the the comments he was making and eventually they got to know him and asked him to stay and he spent about a decade uh there in Sichuan uh with some wanderings elsewhere giving teachings and uh he gave hundreds of teachings he gave an entire exes of the ding which is
• 29:00 - 29:30 uh like long long comments on how to interpret every chapter from a um standpoint of meditation practice and he also gave oh must have been like something like 200 lectures maybe uh just which was then taken as this oral record his students were writing them down um and from that very dense quite long work goong in his time in uh Hong Kong chose 10 chapters that he felt sort
• 29:30 - 30:00 of um were capable of kind of covering all the main issues of DST internal Alchemy practice and theory and then he uh explained those those 10 chapters in Mandarin speaking to a modern audience of Hong kongers um and then I felt as we discussed in the last podcast that that was the way that he explained things very much geared for modern Minds with a modern education education um like we
• 30:00 - 30:30 like we would have like we would find in many many modern countries now uh that it was really well suited to translation compared to a lot of books that are very rich in symbolism and kind of they just become unwieldy because it's just you're translating C symbol after symbol after it just becomes like white tiger Green Dragon cinear you get a headache reading it in English um yes so I do not translate those if I can avoid it yes in your
• 30:30 - 31:00 translator introduction you're right about that very point to quote you hang Wan's way of discussing internal Alchemy was nothing like what is found in the Arcane symbolism Laden writings of the Tang Song and Jinan periods I'm wondering if you might give us a sense of the I suppose the history of inner Alchemy DST inner Alchemy and how it has been understood and represented through those various periods of Chinese history well it clearly has very ancient Roots
• 31:00 - 31:30 uh in alchemy practitioners tend to believe that it was passed down from L uh of course this is a statement that can neither be proven nor disproven but um even if uh we can't prove that point there's a clear relationship to the daing in the sense that many in alchemy practices from the early period up through hangi in the 1800s thought to deepen their understanding of
• 31:30 - 32:00 how to practice meditation through close readings of the daging and interpreting it as a manual for practice um it's generally said in Academia that the early texts that sort of have an clear inner Alchemy vocabulary and symbolic system start to appear in the late Tong Dynasty I think uh one of the most important ones is a commentary on the triplex Unity um by uh Tong Dynasty figure called um which so the tri X Unity is a much
• 32:00 - 32:30 much older text I think it's about 2,000 years old but then in the tongue it was sort of brought out of obscurity through commentaries like p uh explaining meditation practice and then uh in the northern Song Dynasty uh which is the first uh major like unified a large piece a large block of what we now call China following the tong Dynasty during that period a man
• 32:30 - 33:00 named jangan uh he wrote a book called Awakening to reality um which borrows from the symbolism in The commentaries on the tan like P and itself is an extremely thirst and abstruse text but it uses a vocabulary that by his era was already being shared by a number of people um for example there was a DST uh I guess you could call her a nun um T who was
• 33:00 - 33:30 also a very accomplished poet uh she was accomplished D ritual Master as well as um internal Alchemy practitioner she was invited at certain point by song s Dynasty Emperor Hong to actually spend some time in the Imperial Palace as a as a teacher of alchemy and she left behind a text for him I believe um which is called I think like anyway it is a poetic um short text on the essentials
• 33:30 - 34:00 of meditation and it's clear if you look at the text from this era that there was already a shared vocabulary uh it's it's very hard to know and I've talked to some Taiwanese Scholars about this who've been researching for years just how many people were practicing it when exactly it came into Vogue um but all those early texts are very very difficult to read and because they're so heavily Laden in symbolism and because some of the teachings are kept uh quite secret and
• 34:00 - 34:30 remain for the oral tradition as even going very very early on if you open the DST Cannon there's a lot of guess work going on in the commentaries and you'll find the daas Canon is very different from the Buddhist Cannon the Buddhist Cannon is generally looked at as all being the words of the Buddha even if even if their later additions from Mahayana school or their tantos that still thought that they're all going in the same direction and hey in this is I have never heard of text in the Buddhist Canon the tripitaka
• 34:30 - 35:00 actually attacking each other whereas in the daas Canon you can go back to early internal Alchemy and argue each with each other and call each other by out by name and both the same texts that are fighting with each other might end up in the collection um so arguing DS has a very ancient and glorious history as well um and anyway because of its abstruse nature and how all these symbols can be interpreted in many different ways naan kind of or internal Alchemy kind of
• 35:00 - 35:30 bifurcates as time goes on and you have people who have a a sexual interpretation of the texts and they believe it's actually talking about what a man and a woman should be doing together uh in in some form of sex physical sexual Union even later they sort of turn it into like a chiong sexual Union idea um which I actually I don't know if I told you I published a book in Taiwan uh last year in Chinese about this issue and arguing that the Early N were quite against that um you
• 35:30 - 36:00 have other interpretations that are much more similar than to what we would recognize as Chong Andor neong with intentional focus on different parts of the body with intentionally moving Chi this way and that either using using the breath or using mental guidance um or Postal changes and then you have also a school like abis Le and some other teachers that I've encountered as well which is just more about kind of forgetting the body in a way um
• 36:00 - 36:30 of course you can't force yourself to forget it it's a it's sort of a gentle process and letting go of of everything and letting a spontaneous uh series of of of reactions naturally unfold in one's being uh which can include mental and physical levels and um socalled energetic whatever energetic actually means um it's a very hard thing to Define um yeah that's very interesting indeed and
• 36:30 - 37:00 I'd like to return to that point of you want the natural chi flow being emphasized do we see a change in how inner Alchemy is understood in terms of its if the methods are different do we see a difference in terms of How It's understood its goals in terms of its goals and in terms of the process that's supposed to be undertaken yeah it's it's an interesting thing to observe because you can still to this day find uh enthusiasts or researchers
• 37:00 - 37:30 or even practitioners of inner Alchemy who are quite certain that the goal is a sort of physical immortality and sometimes that's interpreted as a situation where the person somehow is reaches a very high level and they can just sort of flip a switch in their mind and they turn into literally I guess nothing right they they they if theoretically if they were
• 37:30 - 38:00 to do this in front of you they would just fade away like they got like Scotty beamed them up I guess but and then with the flip of a thought they could come back um and then when they're um in this occulted state there're sort of beyond space and time they're just in the da uh and you know people to this day will say that there's people who theor Ally did that um there's a fellow in Los Angeles from
• 38:00 - 38:30 China who says his master turned into a rainbow in the middle of White Cloud Monastery in Beijing in the 1980s or 90s um I asked every dos I met in Beijing if anybody had heard of this nobody had and like you know a lot of spiritual people I'm sure um that's not the sort of story that people would easily forget that would a man turling into a pillow of rainbow light in the middle of Beijing
• 38:30 - 39:00 in recent times and it you know um there are many such stories and they they go back far in time as well um there are even a small number of people who interpret this immortality as being a flesh and blood thing you're just like here for a really really really really long time there's often a list of different types of shen or Immortals or Transcendence that's often um attributed to this text from from the late Tong Dynasty most likely that supposed to have been written by two of the eight
• 39:00 - 39:30 Immortals bin and jongan uh and it sort of talks about ghost Immortals and Earth Immortals and Heavenly Immortals it's very interesting because that list actually seems to be adopted from the sharang Sutra which is a Buddhist work and seems to have maybe originally been used to describe certain classes of rishes and somehow you know later became a part of uh DST thought but that being said if you go back to
• 39:30 - 40:00 the founding practitioners of internal Alchemy the really important ones especially when it comes to Historic historical significance for laying the groundwork for the lineages that are well known today especially the lman uh the trenen lman or Dragon Gate they make no bones about those people a dying and they don't even try to give them vastly exaggerated lifespans um Chui is
• 40:00 - 40:30 buried in Beijing White Cloud Monastery well you can go visit his grave to this day um there's a shrine built on top of it a shrine Hall um Wang tongyang died not at an especially ripe old age and apparently uh his funeral was recorded in history is drawing huge huge numbers of people he was a very influential charismatic religious figure while he was still alive in the uh ginen period which was was when the land We Now call China was sort of split between
• 40:30 - 41:00 primarily the Mongols and the the jurin I believe the Jinn Dynasty um and right so all of his disciples died they didn't turn into rainbows or uh poofs of purple dust or whatever um so it's it's something just to keep in mind as one dip dips into what written and what's being said on podcasts and so
• 41:00 - 41:30 forth about uh D Alchemy like if if it's supposed to be about Flesh and Blood immortality or turning into a rainbow or light pillar or whatever why of the earliest texts from the founders not making claims like that uh and the answer you know one of one possible answer to that which I tend to cleave towards is as many teachers of mine have said in different ways DA's practice is about revealing something
• 41:30 - 42:00 that already was not creating something uh and what one of that one of the implications of that is one discovers the way in which one is unborn and therefore undying and that discussions of immortality are really more of a figurative way of expressing um not essentially existing in space and time as we know it but having you know
• 42:00 - 42:30 aspects of ourselves that are so to speak always have been a part of the da never left it um yeah another distinction that I'd be curious to hear your take on is this idea of you know what is the process that's being that's taking place in alchemy of course in the external physical sense there's an Alchemy involving manipulation of substances a sort of uh perhaps pre-chemistry in a sense to take some sort of elixir of
• 42:30 - 43:00 type to to make some sort of special potion or substance that has transformative effects um others say no it's an internal Alchemy in the sense that one is and one here's this producing a certain substance in the body a certain secreting a certain hormonal secretion or some sort of thing uh that itself has some uh important transformative effects other people say no the inner Alchemy is a
• 43:00 - 43:30 psychoemotional uh alchemizing a psychoemotional transformation leading to a Liberation on that kind of a plane so I'm curious when we survey that range of alchemy from the most externally physical to the internally physical to the internally psychoemotional do you recognize that uh those distinctions and what's your take on them uh okay I know I know next to nothing about mineral metallurgical herbal Alchemy um that's an entirely different body of texts uh
• 43:30 - 44:00 even though it's well known that internal Alchemy borrows some of the the vocabulary I do think that they are essentially two different things um um as for I tend to I tend to lean towards the figurative understanding um I don't it you know I haven't close my mind to the possibility that there are sages wandering around
• 44:00 - 44:30 who've fundamentally changed their beings in a way that maybe they really can just with a flick of a thought disappear and come back and maybe some of those Tibetan Masters really do turn into rainbows um I'm not I'm not on a on a on a mission to say that's all wrong uh but personally I've tend to just think okay maybe that does exist and if it's meant to happen to me then it'll happened just as surely As I Grew From a sperm and an OVA into this body
• 44:30 - 45:00 as opposed to you know coming out like this you know like that I didn't choose not to have this body and have this body instead that was a bunch of was a bunch of natural processes um you know and I feel that to walk the path of D meditation for me and to walk the path of Asa says reducing every day that includes eventually reducing um a sort of will towards becoming an
• 45:00 - 45:30 Uber mench of some kind and I've spent a lot of time I I was very I guess I say blessed with the opportunity to take a master's uh at National Taiwan Normal University and I spent four years at it it takes forever to get a master's in Taiwan never do it unless you are a massive nerd with a lot of time on your hands um and it takes it takes four years for native speakers some I know people who took five or six from Masters they had an Master's thesis
• 45:30 - 46:00 this thick and then they go on to get their phds and there's no there's no jobs waiting for these people because Taiwan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world so it's closing universities major aside um um but in in in having this Good Fortune to be able to spend a lot of times with these texts uh one of my main areas of research was Awakening to reality this early uh extremely crucial n text but which has many commentaries
• 46:00 - 46:30 written about it and commentaries began being written about it very shortly after it was written because it's so dense in recondite that it needed uh these these um unpacking documents and there's one that I really regard very highly it's uh attributed to somebody who's called the nameless master who might have been called it's not sure it's called the can be found on cext actually it can be found online for free anyway I I read
• 46:30 - 47:00 it with a very very fine tooth comb and there's one passage only in that entire text that mentions this sort of hormonal secretion and swallowing a bunch of special stuff down and I really got I became very intimate with this text I was reading it constantly and I I got this hunch like that passage doesn't belong here I just kept coming back to it and I was like I just it doesn't feel feel like him it doesn't it doesn't work with the entire
• 47:00 - 47:30 Spirit of the rest of this commentary and I I and eventually after a year of working with this text I just was like I have got to get to the bottom of this question and I realized that that passage was also included in the writings of a later internal Alchemist who was involved in publishing and that therefore might have been reinserted in and it was it also shows up in a Chinese medicine text that uh was WR written in Korea back when Korea was using the Chinese writing system uh a long long
• 47:30 - 48:00 long long time ago this is not a recent Korean text but it's still held in the library in Korea um and that in both that particular dst's the later DST texts as well as this Korean medical text they both attribute that passage about swallowing these big globits that are produced theoretically uh in the internal Alchemy process it says that I think they're like quail and they just keep on coming and coming and coming you just keep swallowing them down into your
• 48:00 - 48:30 dantean they both attribute it not toang aka the nameless Master they attribute it to another text which really makes me think that that was a high likelihood that there's people who feel the need for internal Alchemy to be read as a sort of very physical process in a certain way and added it in and like this is anyone who studies ancient Chinese of any genre will tell you that it was not
• 48:30 - 49:00 abnormal to edit and add to texts in a way that you know would be considered extremely academically dishonest in our day and age but it was just pretty okay to do that back then I mean no and no one was really looking over your shoulder um so and and and there's this trend as the centuries we on that naan leaves these highly sort of abstract philosophical
• 49:00 - 49:30 discussions that are just primordial cheap primordial sh primordial Jing which means sh or prior heaven and therefore without shape or form or color or appearance can't be heard can't be seen can't be touched can't be smelled towards more and more concrete things because I think human Minds it's much more EAS for us to grab onto something that you can grab a hold of conceptually then having the teachers constantly refer you back to L as these three
• 49:30 - 50:00 characters she e way which I I think it's like that which you look at and cannot be seen that which you try to touch and cannot be felt that which you try to hear and has no sound uh and towards something that's like oh no no it's this Chi and it by the way it's like this many tun behind your Naval and then then you can fight for the next 300 years wait is it behind your Naval or beneath your navl or diagonal towards your butthole or uh and exactly how much semen do I need to store right it just becomes
• 50:00 - 50:30 like stuff you can grab a hold of whereas the Ancients are just they're like they're in this realm where they can barely capture what they're trying to talk about with words in fact they can't they'll tell you they can't they're they're just trying to get you to forget all your freaking words so this this a very important short poem of 100 characters attributed to one the ad Immortal liin uh and and its first line I believe is
• 50:30 - 51:00 uh I'm G to forget there's no real like grammar equivalent to ours uh in in ancient Chinese so if you just go character for character it's nourish Chi forget words hold uh and I think that can kind of if we try to insert grammar into that to make it into a comprehensible sentence I think it can be interpreted as in order to nourish and nurture your Chi forget
• 51:00 - 51:30 all things that can be expressed in words and just hold to that but the human mind is it's a monkey it's a I want shiny you know um I know that every day when I sit down to meditate even though I can sit here and spout all this crap and even though I've had insights and experiences that could not have occurred until I cross that threshold of start to dissolve where I'm not trying to find a concept that I can grab on to or I can compare what's happening in my meditation today with
• 51:30 - 52:00 what happened three years ago that I really like that one session and I felt really good I want to replicate that and then well that relates to this text I'm pretty sure if I could go to point B then point c will be Transcendent when that just kind of like oh right right right right right but I honestly I have to walk that same path of forget all that crap every time I sit it doesn't take as long as it maybe did five years ago but it's there and and I personally opening myself into up to a fusel lot of
• 52:00 - 52:30 criticism potentially I personally uh feel that the older dos texts are better interpreted or at least people should try experiment with interpreting that way instead of sort of this model of the human body is a machine the dantean is a battery you need to find a way to fill it with more magic electricity and better quality magic electricity and then it's going to like sort of explode but in a good way and blow your circuits but once they're all blown they'll be like built as stronger circuits and then you can rinse and repeat because we're
• 52:30 - 53:00 always looking for better magic energy and eventually I'm going to have sort of a Goku moment and it's all gonna make sense and then I'm gonna turn into rainbow and I don't have to pay taxes anymore oh and all the girls will like me even though I'm above that you know being Immortal I don't need that a Goku moment that's great you know it's very interesting hearing you talk here as you weave together you're own personal practice and what you've learned and
• 53:00 - 53:30 heard from practitioners experienced practitioners at with your reading of the close reading of classical texts and in your translators introduction you write Scholastic Pursuits can easily become a path leading away from the kinds of insights that are necessary for DST practice but at the same time Proficiency in Reading interpreting and contextualizing classic text is a necessity in inter Alchemy a necessity I'm curious if you might talk a little
• 53:30 - 54:00 bit about that balance oh yeah that that was actually from the opening of the book I believe I was uh thanking this professor I have here in Taiwan uh shono who's a very rigorous um textual researcher um so my teacher in Chicago uh the one who prefers to remain nameless one thing he often says to his students is the teacher will not be here forever they will not be by your side
• 54:00 - 54:30 forever that is one of the reasons you have to familiarize yourself with the text because you may well come to a point in your life where if your teacher is older than you or they've simply moved away or gone into seclusion for a long period of time you can't always go find your teacher and believe me it is hard to find somebody even in Taiwan who I can have a conversation about Nan internal Alchemy texts with because a little secret here actually
• 54:30 - 55:00 the girls are not that into internal Alchemy I've had dates more or less end when I'm like I researched thousand them and they're like oh he's one of those I'm gonna go I'm just take my person and go to the bathroom real quick and then they just don't come back I believe they turned into Immortals in a pillar of light in the bathroom um yeah so I got to stop digressing I must stop digressing myself um yes it is it it is imperative to
• 55:00 - 55:30 become familiar with these texts so that you can understand the context of some of your experiences in the event that you do not have a teacher or spiritual friend further along the path who can help help you to interpret them and that's a high likelihood um you know internal Alchemy teachers generally speaking quite interestingly another thing that I I find is a shared trait across quite a few that I've met is that they don't tend to be into Gathering people around themselves and
• 55:30 - 56:00 trying to make uh institutions they tend to be much more kind of um This this term slan like do you have predestined Affinity with this person then you will meet them when the time is right and you're in their path and they will transmit to you what they have that you are capable of receiving and that they are willing or able to transmit and there's a high likelihood that you're not going to be spending all your time
• 56:00 - 56:30 in their you know Dojo so to speak or or Temple because actually not that many internal Alchemists are necessarily affiliated with a temple um and like you know abis Leo a person who really cares about my own uh development you know I don't sit and meditate with her when back when I was able to go to China you know and sometimes I wouldn't even be in the same Temple where she was because she's also got her religious responsibilities and she would be away for a period of time and the thing is
• 56:30 - 57:00 that when you spend a lot of time with these really early texts um not only are you sort of developing an intellectual capability to use them as Frameworks for understanding what's happening to you you are also if you read them with a certain mindset and this isn't just something I made up this is something that um again my teacher in Chicago is one example of a person who says this but I know another D who says something very similar here in Taiwan you read it with this sort of
• 57:00 - 57:30 open non-grasping mind I think even go goong talks about reading his book in this way in the translation you don't you don't try to like sort of go in with the Jackhammer mind where you're trying to like rip open the the sort of shell of this text to find it secrets and and mind them out and then organize them in a in a very clear manner it's sort of more like you're letting things wash over you and they interact with deeper aspects of your of your mind
• 57:30 - 58:00 than this sort of surficial Brainy brain that we've all been taught to have if we went to school the you know the brain that can memorize stuff and make lists and pass a multiple choice exam we have other aspects of our Consciousness and our intelligence that can be activated and can interact with these texts I mean they're viewed as being
• 58:00 - 58:30 holy works I guess you would say in English you know these an these ancient scriptures and and that it's a privilege to be able to read them they have they have I guess a cheese signature and even a connection to the beings who wrote them that is very much alive and I do personally feel from my own life uh I tend to put stock in that for what it's worth do you think it's possible to pursue the path of internal Alchemy D internal Alchemy
• 58:30 - 59:00 without facility in classical Chinese and the ability to access these texts in the way you can yes I do I think it is um the the teacher I mentioned I've mentioned many times now he has students in France as well as the US and a few other countries and um he is extraordinarily I mean I I've received very long emails from this this teacher over the years and I don't think I've ever seen a typo in that like literally
• 59:00 - 59:30 not one Flawless English and grew up speaking more than one Chinese dialect and can read the classics he he's certainly not the only teacher out there uh and he's got Decades of meditation experience and had two DS Masters um people like this are rare but you know D was SW just kind of laugh and be like well if it's if it's in your it's in your predestined Affinity to meet such a person you will and if
• 59:30 - 60:00 you're afraid that it's not then go do a bunch of good deeds and pray and and really pray pray to in such a manner as to change yourself from the inside out and there will be a resonance um in the universe uh there there's a guy in I think he's still alive in California hingi who wrote a lot of books about dosm and they're not translations of the classics but he talks about this sort sort of I think he calls it the law of universal response something like that and I think
• 60:00 - 60:30 he's translating like G uh his translation is good enough so I won't try to retranslate it but like you truly with sincerity change what's going on in here as well as what's going on in here and and you will you will you will move the universe in a way um and and yeah and if you don't have I don't think it has to be the case that a
• 60:30 - 61:00 person needs to learn classical Chinese you may have the Good Fortune of encountering a teacher who is fluent in your language who can transmit the essence because again the Ence the essence is ineffable so it doesn't really matter which language you try to wrap the finger pointing at the moon in as long as as long as that finger knows which direction to point very interesting thank you you're write in the your translators in struction DST cultivators hold that the product of DST
• 61:00 - 61:30 Alchemy is something of real Eternal value it goes with a person when he or she leaves the world internal Alchemy is also called the great way of the golden Elixir the practice of in alchemy is sometimes referred to as the skill of returning these two terms summarize the meaning of the daoist alchemical cultivation very early on the term golden Elixir referred to something that ancient practitioners of external Alchemy aimed to produce from physical
• 61:30 - 62:00 substances but in inner Alchemy golden Elixir is a metaphorical term that implies an alchemical technique that unfolds entirely within one's being what is this golden Elixir and how is it that these two principles that I've quoted you as describing uh summarize the meaning of doist alchemical cultivation I think the clearest uh definition I can attempt to give as a person who has not completed the Alchemy is that the golden
• 62:00 - 62:30 Elixir is a figurative way of talking about the union of Prior Heaven she and prior Heaven Shen um the essential aspects of our mind as well as our life energy um those aspects which there's a term in Chinese we use it every day and yet we're not aware of that uh
• 62:30 - 63:00 they sort of if you you know borrow a Buddhist standpoint if everybody's already a Buddha then indeed we're using our Buddha nature every day in order to be conscious it is you know even if we are not awakened we still conscious at least while we're awake you know um so that that is the functioning of your prior Heaven mind in the daily life the later Heaven
• 63:00 - 63:30 World it hasn't been sort of turned back to become aware of itself and part of the internal Alchemy process seems to be as one traces back and finds this constantly being used and yet we are not aware that it even exists aspect of our self then it creates a response with the I guess the energy of the Dow really that is
• 63:30 - 64:00 imminent and as they join together the results uh the kind of a Transcendence that people who are very high far along in alchemy talk about begins to unfold spontaneously um now okay so this morning I because you mentioned what is golden Elixir last time I thought oh I'll I'll do a little quick mini translation this morning to kind of share um the first one the first paragraph I
• 64:00 - 64:30 translated is from this uh commentary on awakening to Reality by the nameless Master possibly actually named uh Wong bang and uh I'll just I'll just read it it's not too long true lead is the golden Elixir prior Heaven Oneness CH is similar to a bright moon at times full at times partial of one clan with a title board of one click with the lunar official the poor of the earth is the external
• 64:30 - 65:00 medicine thus it is the white tiger the inner medicine is thus the golden Elixir the of the heavens is the external medicine thus it is the green dragon internally it is the cinear Mercury of the body of G externally it is the Crescent Moon Chi of the Dragon internally it is the golden Elixir and it is also called the silver within the water these are metaphors for the for the two medicines inner and outer only
• 65:00 - 65:30 have the white tiger catch hood and naturally the dream the green dragon will control po the two chiefs swallow one another and produce the golden Elixir once you have obtained the golden Elixir then once more have this Elixir catched the true Mercury of G the true Mercury transforms golden Elixir and becomes the sagely fetus once the true dragon and True Tiger within are tamed then ordinary dragons and ordinary Tigers external to
• 65:30 - 66:00 oneself are naturally pacified when the spiritual H and ghostly poor within one's body becomes sagely then the yin spirits and sluggish ghosts in the outside world naturally show respect aside from those whose morals are flourishing who would be able to be like this okay I'm going to say right yeah I'm never going to translate that whole book because a I will go insane and V
• 66:00 - 66:30 nobody will gain anything from it um but actually in that huge mudle of uh of alchemical uh metaphors and symbols what is actually primarily being discussed and and this comes up in in gong's book um as well as another thing I'm translating um is basically the two trigrams can and Le or so-called fire
• 66:30 - 67:00 and so-called water fire being associated with the mind with Shun with spirit and one way of explaining what it symbolically represents is it's these two Yang lines on the outside represent representing the way in which the mind is constantly moving kind of like a flame young flame you see the association between them it's constantly flickering it can you know can become very bright fills it fills our awareness with the with the with the brightness of being conscious of things um and like a
• 67:00 - 67:30 fire it jumps from place to place and it can even you know create a huge Blaze as passions of the mind run wild can do um and yet within that constantly jumping around mind for all beings is a core of Stillness whether or not they're capable of accessing it and abiding in that and bringing it to the four is another the question but it's in there it has to be it's the that you use it every day and
• 67:30 - 68:00 you don't know it part and then within one's being the cagr can can um used be used to represent this in one's existence in this world that has become manifest there's this term in Chinese um that which is Young transforms things or even destroys them into ch that which is Yin allows things to come into form we we live in a manifest universe that's
• 68:00 - 68:30 as a normal ordinary human being we're only really aware of that which exists as I'm sure you noticed in G's book there's this weird thing in the language where he's constantly referring to non-existent Chi right like if it's non-existent why would we even put our minds there but I can say from personal meditation experience that sentence ceased to be nonsensical to me a long long long long time ago there can be an experience where it's like oh okay that I have seen there's a threshold between existence and non-existence but most of the time in
• 68:30 - 69:00 daily life for me I mean it's not like I drop into that state on a regular basis in meditation and most of the time in daily life we are concerned with and utterly consumed by and solely aware of that which is already manifest so we could use the two Yin lines on the outside of the water trigram can trigram to represent that things that have taken form and shape and appearance than manifest but with in that is a formless energy
• 69:00 - 69:30 that's everywhere and absolutely cannot be an intrinsic part of everything that exists in the universe because it is it is like the the literal Foundation of um of all things that exist uh even though those things are in constant flux and you know for example this USB mouse here or not USB uh Bluetooth mouth Bluetooth Mouse here has a battery in it so eventually that's going to run out of
• 69:30 - 70:00 electricity but all things are always going to have they because they're ultimately a part of the da and that she is the da it's it's energetic or it's it's living aspect as goong does a lot of explaining and does a better job than me in his book um and so that very abstruse paragraph that I just read is about going into a state in which those hidden from us in our normal experience of being aspects
• 70:00 - 70:30 become they come to the four and then they begin naturally to interact the the old texts talk about the mating and this is a big part of the reason there's this confusion that develops several hundred years later where people just get it in their heads that old internal alchemy books are talking about sex between men and women it's yes they do talk about sex and they do talk about mating but they're actually if you read them carefully enough they're actually very explicit like they I mean they'll bang you over the head with it like do not misinterpret what I'm saying is talking
• 70:30 - 71:00 about sex and dos are pretty pro-ex people pretty sex positive people in fact some of the most sex positive religionists I have ever met they just so they're not saying don't have sex they're just saying don't don't get this all muddled up like go have your sex in a loving healthy relationship over there and when it's meditation time don't try to consum girl into sitting on your lap and tell her that you're G to you know just if that's what you want just be honest and take you know do do the normal thing right um so anyway that is
• 71:00 - 71:30 a mating of primordial yin and yang three Heaven yin and yang that are in our bodies but because of the way that we are oriented in a human existence they tend to be never joining getting out of the way and dropping into the way State can potentially create the opportunity for them to find each other once again and begin to nourish each other and then become indistinguishable to become one
• 71:30 - 72:00 go goes you know he makes that point a lot in the book that real practice of Shing and Ming or or the essence of the mind and the essence of life mind nature and life Essence they get to the point where that you can't even use the two words Shing and Ming because they become one thing um but you do use those two words at earlier stages because we need need our minds still need something to latch on to to get started started with the
• 72:00 - 72:30 practice um yeah that was what that whole very complicated paragraph was about now that might um cause the question to arise in people's minds and then like how are you supposed to go about practicing and I ended up uh translating this other passage if you'd like me to share it I could that is is more straightforward about practice please do okay so this this passage is from a commentary on the daing that was written during the reign
• 72:30 - 73:00 of the kangi emperor by a very interesting uh man who we only I believe know his DST name s longen um and he had apparently worked as sort of an imperial archist of some sort for 20 years a government official post uh so there sort of Echoes of lau and then but he's not that long not that far separated from us maybe 250 years or so um and then once he retired from his uh official career he went and became a
• 73:00 - 73:30 chhen monk uh in the lman school and spent I think another two decades or so practicing the da and then he wrote this commentary on the da Jing which was actually Kang XI the emperor was so impressed with it he wrote an edict saying that all his ministers should read this uh commentary it's not solely a meditation manual interpretation of the daging but it does include uh instructions on meditation also relates the daging to family and to running a country and this is a very broadly
• 73:30 - 74:00 interpretable text um and this particular passage I felt was uh just just very beautiful and and kind of uh relates to the above and makes the the last passage I I quoted more relatable so this is a commentary on one of the last lines of the 40th chapter of the daing and he writes the text speaks of the existent and
• 74:00 - 74:30 non-existent people only know that which can be seen and heard they say that this indeed exists that which cannot be seen or heard they say indeed does not exist if they use the existent they clutch that the existence that has form and appearance if they use the non-existent they ENT into the non-existence of insensate Oblivion which is a term from
• 74:30 - 75:00 Chan Buddhism W Kong which means sort of just falling into a a a state of void of of just sort of empty dark uh unawareness uh I've experienced that in meditation and some people apparently mistake that for uh an ideal meditation State and then apply themselves to remaining in one Kong as as long as they can it's kind of a it gets criticized a lot in DST and Buddhist text as a sort of an a mistaken
• 75:00 - 75:30 side path and a sort of an avoidance like wanting to put oneself into a coma where all one's troubles are forgotten so he says uh they enter into the non-existence of insensate Oblivion yet they do not realize that within that which has form and appearance The Marvelous marvelously non-existent is present yet and still within that which has no form and no appearance there exists that which has an unfathomable
• 75:30 - 76:00 existence whoever can understand this principle will know the Marvel of returning and restoring then primordial nature will not be lost primordial spirit will abide of its own accord Prim primordial Chi will coales of its own accord primordial Jing will condense of its own accord the primordial principle will self attain the primordial mechanism will
• 76:00 - 76:30 function on its own moreover things will be able to knock into Oneness uh another Chan Buddhist phrase just everything becomes one then Shing and Ming will be complete on their own Shing being uh original nature of mind and Ming being the essence of life and the golden Elixir can be completed therefore those who nurture the da in their thoughts they eliminate evil ideas
• 76:30 - 77:00 in their hearts they eliminate diluted Notions they put a stop to strong grandiose mindsets and learn to have soft weak Wills their words are gentle and can't be used to fight for power over others all of their actions are modest and yielding and cannot be undertaken to be victorious over others their countless hardships their Sleepless days and nights are passed through solely to seek the
• 77:00 - 77:30 principles of that which is Marvel marvelously non-existent and that which is profoundly extant regarding the principles of that which is Marvell non-existent and that which is profoundly existent only those who have tremendous epiphanies and insight who have encountered a true teacher who reveals the secret teachings will understand the subtleties of its movement its Essence its Stillness and its function and obtain the marvels of its
• 77:30 - 78:00 returning movement and weak function okay maybe people are going to be sitting there listening be like that's just as incomprehensible but um yeah wonderful thank you Maas no problem well this has been a fascinating conversation yeah uh and yeah and I must recommend to everyone if they haven't bought the book since our last discussion to find DST inner Alchemy uh
• 78:00 - 78:30 translated by Matias da published by Shambala really wonderful book and I look forward to our next installation we plan our next conversation we planned a something of a trip tick the third we're going to go into the weird and wonderful spirit Realms your own experience of it and I hope as well maybe we can discuss uh the way in which those Realms are viewed with owsm and uh broader Chinese uh religion and medicine and so on oh
• 78:30 - 79:00 yeah thank you great Matias da thank you very much thank you have a wonderful day thank you for listening to another Guru Viking podcast for more interviews like these as well as articles videos and guided meditations visit www.guru.com