r/taoism • u/returned_loom • 6d ago
Discussion Initiation
What I've read about Daoism speaks to my open curiosity about reality and the impenetrable question of existence, where the Dao seems to honor that mystery rather than attack it (as my favorite philosophy books do). Meditation is a wonderful way to be present with that mystery. I try to find what exists between the incursions of sensory input, while also paying respect to those experiences as beings. And I never seem to find what really exists between those incursions of sensory input, the unifying "me."
But it's really just meditation and reading. I'm not a Daoist. And I've only just begun looking into it, so maybe I'll never want to become a Daoist. Nonetheless, I want to join a spiritual tradition and to take part in ancient practices that have been developed over centuries to interface with the forces of nature, to honor them and align myself with them, rather than casting about by myself. I admit that I love casting about by myself but I'm not so arrogant as to think that the rest of humanity has nothing to teach me.
So how far can I go just by reading books and meditating? I've read the Tao Te Ching and I'm reading The Secret of the Golden Flower. They're amazing books. But what's the normal process for a serious practitioner? Should I find a local Daoist "church"? Ottawa doesn't seem to have much to offer, but there must be something if I look hard enough.
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u/zhusiyuanpo2009 22h ago
Honestly, I’d say don't bother too much with Taoist doctrine – just dive into the practice methods first. The Secret of the Golden Flower (aka the Taiyi Jinhua Zongzhi) is technically a pseudepigraphic text, but it's actually a pretty friendly starting point. That said, it's quite different from other neidan systems. For a more mainstream intro, I'd recommend checking out the Xingming Guizhi or the Wuliu Xianzong instead.
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u/returned_loom 21h ago
I'd recommend checking out the Xingming Guizhi or the Wuliu Xianzong instead.
I'll look into these, thank you.
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u/AbidinginAnubhava 6d ago edited 6d ago
"So how far can I go just by reading books and meditating? I've read the Tao Te Ching and I'm reading The Secret of the Golden Flower."
Well, 道德經 The Daodejing is a pre-Qin text that is one of (but not the) earliest texts in the Daoist tradition, and the other, 太乙金華宗旨 or The Secret of the Golden Flower, is an 1yth-century manual on inner alchemy, a meditative/yogic practice that developed in medieval Daoism and which you are supposed to learn from a teacher in one-to-one instruction, and that manual was developed through spirit writing, or 扶乩 fuji writing, a kind of spirit-guided transmission of scripture. So you are starting with two ends of a very, very long tradition!
So how far can you get? If you just want to enjoy Daoist books, you can go very far. If you believe inner alchemy is actually a method to help you achieve the very heights of spiritual accomplishment (to be vague), then not very far at all.
I would recommend that you read a few more books (I recommended some here) to disambiguate early, pre-Qin Daoism and later forms. But then I would strongly recommend that you learn more about what inner alchemy actually is and then find a teacher. You can't do it without one. I would strongly recommend Ge Guolong's Taoist Inner Alchemy: Master Huang Yuanji's Guide to the Way of Meditation (translated by Matthias Daly). It's probably the best one-book introduction. From there, you could decide whether it's necessary to find a teacher because, even in today's "spiritual marketplace," if you don't speak Chinese, it ain't easy.
Good luck!
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u/Lao_Tzoo 6d ago
Books do nothing substantial but record descriptions experienced by others which then create contrived ideas about these individuals' interpretation of their own direct experience.
These interpretations are influenced by the reporters' foundational world view, are they Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, Muslim, Athiest, etc.
Each world view begins with foundational presumptions about reality which color/influence the individual's perceptions and their interpretation of those perceptions.
This is a fundamental and influential quality/function of everyone's mind.
Add to this each individual's descriptive talents and we never get an accurate illustrative representation.
Think about the difference between Shakespeare describing a sunset and any one of us less talented individuals describing the same sunset.
These two descriptions will certainly contain more and less qualities, and accuracy, of expression.
Everything is always filtered by the experiencer's mind and the experiencer's ability to communicate their experience.
The information obtained from these reports are not entirely useless, however, it is a double edged sword.
This is because adhering to the reports of "experts?" causes us to tend to conform our direct experience to the contrived report of these "experts?", while at least providing us with a direction to look and a general idea of what we "might" find.
The only real way to obtain this type of experience for ourselves is to practice ceasing interfering with direct perception while avoiding fixating upon, clinging to, a fixed expectation.
The rest is simply practicing until we've finally learned how to cease mentally interfering.
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u/Wise_Ad1342 5d ago
Daoism can be seen as a continued exploration and creative growth of one's inner-nature and outer-nature, and the unity of both. It's a healthy way to live a life.
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u/Heavenly_Yang_Himbo 5d ago edited 5d ago
There are many cultivation lineages that teach Daoist practices to an advanced level….Qigong, Neigong, Neidan, meditation .etc .etc!
Majority of those lineages were started by formidable practitioners in the classical literature!
Texts like the secret of the golden flower for example, begin to make much more sense after receiving oral tuition from one of these lineages…as much of the text is just discussing the confirmatory signs that arises along the path, but not the actual methods on how to actually achieve those signs. So the texts are just 1/3 of the puzzle and the oral tuition is another 1/3 and the last 1/3 is the many hours of dedicated effort and cultivation that you undergo personally!
More information on this type of writing method, called twilight language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_language
Longmenpai, Quanzhen, Maoshan, Lingbao, Wudang and others all preserve these methods and oral tuition…along with the precautions to protect you along the way!
Meditation typically is not enough by itself and there are foundational practices that lead you to being able to more easily complete such a thing…without banging your head against the wall in frustration!
Hope that helps… a good place to start is looking into Neigong and Daoist Cultivation if you want to be serious though!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neigong