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Your Body Copy Goes Here… Spiritual-Physical “Gong-fu” or “Kung-fu” Transformations According to Taoism Lesson 2: “Gong-fu” Transformations Within the Physical Body by William Bodri [email protected] 718-539-2811 Copyright © 2003, All Rights Reserved Taoism offers its own ways of describing the various stages of the path to spiritual enlightenment. Because Taoism is a “form school” that emphasizes cultivation of the physical body, its descriptive scheme heavily emphasizes physical characteristics--rather than mental realms--for delineating the process of spiritual training and actual progress on the spiritual trail. No matter what spiritual cultivation school we choose, the overall process of spiritual attainment is basically the same. However, each religion usually describes the path using a different angle from its cohorts. In particular, Taoism describes progress on the spiritual path using the landmarks of physical transformations and material phenomena rather than by emphasizing changes in mental phenomena. Thus in terms of the main Chinese cultivation schools, it’s often said that “Buddhism describes the path in terms of the mind, Confucianism describes the path in terms of behavior, and Taoism describes the path in terms of phenomena.” Naturally, all these schools describe the cultivation path in other ways as well, especially Buddhism, but this particular maxim draws attention to the outstanding characteristics of each of these spiritual schools. To fully comprehend the Taoist way of defining spiritual cultivation, it’s essential that you first understand the meaning of three basic substances: jing, chi and shen. If you can understand these substances, which are a cornerstone in Traditional Chinese Medicine theory (and which also play an important role in Indian ayurvedic medicine through their Vedic equivalents), you can use them as a reliable framework for interpreting the various mind-body states which occur along the spiritual ladder. In other words, the use of this particular set of terms can be readily employed to explain the various gong-fu phenomena experienced along almost any true spiritual trail. In particular, an understanding of jing, chi and shen can shed 1 Spiritual-Physical “Gong-fu” or “Kung-fu” Transformations According to Taoism tremendous light on the mind-body studies that many scientists are currently undertaking.1 JING, CHI AND SHEN What is jing? Jing is a Chinese term that refers to our body’s seminal essence, and in Hinduism the closest equivalent term is ojas. True jing is not actually the physical semen of the body, however, but is more akin to the body’s vital force that is present within each and every living cell. Of course, the crudest meaning of jing does indeed refer to the physical body’s seminal, ovarian and endocrine secretions, but that’s only the coarsest meaning out of all the different definitions available. An even better physical correspondence would be the endocrine substances of the kidneys and reproductive organs. The “bindus,” “bodhicitta” and “bodhimind substances” described in Tantra all commonly refer to jing in some form or another, and the term “water element” of the body found in orthodox Buddhism usually refers to these same substances as well. Simply put, we can think of jing as referring to our body’s hormones and endocrine secretions, or the semen or eggs within a man’s or woman’s physical body, or simply as the materialized essence of the physical body’s vital force which is found within all living cells. To make successful progress in spiritual cultivation, it’s a common rule across the various spiritual traditions that you mustn’t lose your semenal jing via excessive leakage, namely sexual activities. Thus we have the injunction of “discipline” found in Buddhism, “no-leakage” found in Taoism, “celibacy” found in Christianity, and “brahmacharya” found in Hinduism. This principle of no-leakage is embedded in the concepts of “innocence,” “virginity,” or “purity” which are found in most all of the genuine religions. This type of concept suggests a combination of the purity of mental emptiness, an absence of 1 For instance, please see: • The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation, M. Murphy and S. Donovan, (Institute of Noetic Sciences, Sausalito: California,1997). • Yoga Research Bibliography: Scientific Studies on Yoga and Meditation, R. Monroe, (Biomedical Trust, Cambridge: Massachusetts, 1989). • “A bibliography of meditation research 1931-1983,” M. Murphy and S. Donovan, Transpersonal Psychology 15:2, 1988. • Mind/Body Health, Brent Hafen, Keith Karren, Kathryn, and N. Lee Smith, (Allyn and Bacon, Boston, 1996). • Mind Body Medicine, ed. by Daniel Goleman and Joel Gurin, (Consumer Reports Books, Yonkers: New York, 1993). 2 Spiritual-Physical “Gong-fu” or “Kung-fu” Transformations According to Taoism sexual desire, and the discipline of not losing one’s jing through sexual activities. As the Hatha Yoga Pradipika directly tells us, Therefore, the knower of yoga conquers death by preserving the bindu (semen). Release of the bindu means death; conservation of semen is life. As long as the bindu/semen is steady in the body, then where is the fear of death? The yogi’s body smells pleasant by conserving the bindu/semen. A man’s semen can be controlled by the mind and control of semen is lifegiving. Therefore, the semen and mind should be controlled and conserved.2 All the various injunctions for celibacy that we find in religions—whether for men or for women—basically state that an individual must preserve their jing while simultaneously cultivating a state of mental emptiness. In that way, the regenerative nature of this vital force can accumulate through non-leakage, and then be harnessed and directed into the cultivation path through transmutation. If you can retain your generative fluids by preventing their dispersal through dissipative sexual activities, and if you can meanwhile cultivate a mind of emptiness which allows them to effortlessly transmute into yet higher spiritual substances, then you might be able to achieve something substantial on the spiritual path. If you cannot do this, however, then the highest stages of spiritual attainment will forever be barred from you. The energy within pure jing is absolutely fantastic, and this force can actually produce renewal in the physical body and boost one’s progress up the spiritual ladder. Lao Tzu tried to communicate jing’s great potential when he mentioned that a male baby will often experience an erection of his penis even though the baby does not yet know anything of sexual desire. Taoism offers a related saying on this matter as well, which is, “To not know the intercourse of male and female and yet have an erection, this is the arising of jing.” The reason that we’re getting into a discussion on jing is that I’m laying the groundwork for a detailed discussion on the following cultivation principles: that the path of spiritual striving involves chain of transformative processes involving the physical nature, these physical transformations evolve in a definite sequence of step-by-step transmutations, and the initial transformations along the spiritual path involve the jing of our physical body. 2 Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Swami Muktibodhananda Saraswati (Bihar School of Yoga, Bihar: India, 1993), pp. 344-349. 3 Spiritual-Physical “Gong-fu” or “Kung-fu” Transformations According to Taoism No matter who you are on the road of spirituality, you will have to experience these physical transformations. Furthermore, these physical transformations all require a certain minimum amount of time to reach a stage of completion, just as it takes a certain amount of time to go through puberty, and there is very little you can do to accelerate this transformative process. Along these lines, the Surangama Sutra of Buddhism comments, “The mind can be suddenly enlightened, but daily matters [karmic entanglements] cannot be suddenly removed.” The great Zen master Kuei-shan also commented, If, due to an intervening cause, one is instantly awakened to the truth in the time of a thought, there still exists since the time without beginning the force of habit which cannot be eliminated at a stroke. (In this case), one should be taught (by one’s teacher) completely to cut the flow of discrimination caused by outstanding karma; this is practice but it does not mean that there really is a definite method which one should be urged to follow and practice.3 These quotes refer to the fact that spiritual awakening can be a sudden affair, but an individual who becomes spiritually enlightened still requires time to cut off the force of lingering habits and transform the physical body into a more fit spiritual vehicle. This is one of the reasons that Zen master Hui-neng, after his enlightenment, went into hiding for nearly a decade, as one of his objectives was to completely transform his habits as well as his physical nature. Because the transformative gong-fu of the path involves the physical body, this gong-fu can only transmute in a step-by-step fashion just as we have our ordinary sequential stages of growth involved in becoming a full adult. The root source, or first step of this series of spiritual-physical mind-body transformations starts with the transformation of our jing generative essence, but this jing is not restricted to a male’s semen or female’s sexual fluids. Rather, it includes the jing in every cell of the body. To simplify matters we usually just restrict our talk so that it’s focused on the endocrine essences involved in sexual relations. People usually just refer to this aspect of jing because these fluids play a critical role in the transformation of the physical body on the road of spiritual evolution, and because the comings and goings of seminal jing are the easiest form of jing to experience and understand.
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