I can't remember when I had a conversation with it, nor can I remember where this text came from?As a compilation translation focusing on the meditation tradition of the Upper Qing school, 'Taoist Meditation: The Mao shan Tradition of Great Purity' extensively references Andersen and Robinet, both authoritative scholars in the field of Western Taoist studies,
So I asked another AI (Doubao AI)
he told me :
This English Chinese translated text is from the English translation of Taoist scriptures compiled by American scholar Elizabeth Ann Hull,
titled 'Taoist Meditation: The Mao shan Tradition of Great Purity'**
I checked my collection of e-books and found one
title: Taoist Meditation : The Mao-shan Tradition of Great Purity SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and
Culture author: Robinet, Isabelle. publisher: State University of New York Press
===========================================================
Pick a paragraph
I. Unity: Void, Origin, and Chaos--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
T'ao Hung-ching confirms the fact that the Su-ling ching (the title derives from the Celestial Palace of Su-ling or "Pure Spirit") is the basic scripture for "preserving the one."3 The single expression of shou-i, "to preserve the one," could almost be said to summarize the essence of Taoist meditation. It is a theme that is derived from the advice given by the Lao-tzu: "make your corporeal soul and your spiritual soul embrace the One and not be separated" (chapter 10) as well as the observation that "the Sage embraces the One" (pao-i). This expression is also used in the Chuang-tzu which, in one chapter (chapter 23), attributes it to Lao-tzu and, in another chapter (chapter 11), presents Kuang-ch'eng-tzu's explanation of "preserving the one" during a lecture to Huang-ti.
This expression became very popular and was understood in different ways by the various Taoist schools.
The Lao-tzu (chapter 39) proclaims that: "Heaven obtained the One and is clear;/Earth obtained the One and is tranquil. . . . The Ten Thousand Things obtained the One and they have life."
Sometimes the One is equated with the Tao and sometimes it is produced by the Tao. As the Lao-tzu says (chapter 42): "Tao gave birth to the One, the One gave birth to the two. . . ."
When the One is identified with the Tao, it refers to the Void (wu), non-being, or the formless matrix of all things. It is the origin of numbers so that Wang Pi, the celebrated commentator on the Lao-tzu, says that "it is not a number, but numbers are accomplished by it" or that it is the "pole."4
Using language similar to that seen in negative theology, Ho-shang, kung declares (chapter 14): "In Heaven, the One is neither bright nor resplendent. . . under Heaven, the One is neither obscure nor dark. The formless One informs all things."
The One is not, however, only transcendence closed upon itself. It is also the Mother or Origin. In this sense, it corresponds to Water as the source of all life and to Number through which Heaven, along with Water, formed the world. The One is also correlated with the winter solstice, which is the starting point for the renewal of yang (the annual ascension of yang begins in the depths, or the place where north is located in Chinese orientation).
The Tao-shu summarizes these ideas very well by saying: "Heaven with the One has engendered Water to fertilize what is below. The One dwells in the north. Among the seasons, it is winter; among the viscera, it is the kidneys. It is the first number and trigram k'un (three yin lines)." 5 The One is also chaos which is equivalent to the closed-in-upon-itself condition of ta-tung. As chaos, it is, moreover, blind and without the apertures of seine. It dies, as the Chuang-tzu says, when eyes and ears are bored into it. It is furthermore the egg, generated by the union of Heaven and Earth, that contains P'an-ku, the Universal Man. P'an-ku grows up the point where he separates Heaven and Earth and then he falls, his body cut into pieces. The scattered parts of his body constitute the world. Chaos disappears by the press which divides it into two principles and which gives existence to the world.6 The One is the origin of forms and their changes. In the Lieh-tzu, one finds probably the oldest text describing the slow division of unity which ushers in the appearance of the world. This is a process made up of several stages or states of the Original Chaos. As the Lieh-tzu (chapter 1) says: "There was the Great Beginning (t'ai-i), the Great Origin (t'ai-ch'u), the Great Genesis (t'ai-shih), and the Great Simplicity (t''ai-su); at the time of the Great Origin, there was no breath; the Great Origin was the beginning of breath, the Great Genesis was the beginning of form, and the Great Simplicity was the beginning of matter. When breath, form, and matter were were not yet separatedthat is what is called chaos." Certain Taoist texts have embellished this description by attributing various colors and spirits to each of these states of chaos. These same texts also distinguish several kinds of void which succeed each other in order to prepare for the coming of the world.7 But all of these different voids or chaos states are still identical with the One. As one commentary specifically says: "the One is called the Great Void. . ., the Great Genesis (t'ai-shih), and the Great Origin (t'ai-ch'u)."8 These are speculations which attempt to account for the link between the One and the Manyand the unknowable passage from oneness to multiplicity.
Taoist meditation, especially the kind practiced by the adepts of Great Purity, is fundamentally concrete and imagistic. In this sense, it could not be satisfied with metaphysical and intellectual abstractions. The exercises focused on the One betray this difficulty of meditating on what is not representable or not perceptible. These exercises, therefore, often proceed by a method of detoursthat is, the One is divinized or, more often, becomes the object of an imaginative reflection concerned with its development, its dynamic nature, and its relationship with the multiple. An example of this is seen in the many descriptions of chaos passing through diverse phases of development. Most often, however, the One is represented by Three, or Unity-Recovered, which is the manifest form of the One in relationship with the multiple.
The division of the One into two distinct principles is followed by the reunion of the two in order to form a third principle which is the image of harmony and the condition of all life. As the Lao-tzu (chapter 42) says: "The One engendered the Two, the Two engendered the Three, and the Three engendered the ten thousand things." The One therefore manifests itself and fecundates the universe in the form of Three. In the T'ai-p'ing ching, this Three is the infant which is born from the Father and Mother. This Three is the One, and the One is the Three.
In Taoist cosmogony, the Oneeven before the appearance of yin and yang and before it split into twogenerated the Three Primordial Breaths. This event prefigures both the first and final Unity. Thus these three breaths are also the three supreme deities who reside in the three celestial spheres or highest heavens. These three deities constitute the Onealthough they reside in different locations, carry different names, and appear at different times. These three supreme deities have, in turn, each engendered three others known as the Nine Primordial Breaths, nine superior heavens, or even the "nine souls of the Lord." 9 These new entities are the Nine-Ones.
Three and Nine are the numbers which symbolize Unity and Totality. They are the origin and also the Return to the Origin or the Whole. They are that which fuses the various components of the human person and that which must, in keeping with two important Taoist terms, be "integrated" (ch'|+an) and made to "return" (huan).
The One is also personified and divinized. It is, in this sense, often depicted as dwelling within the body.
In the T'ai-p'ing ching, the One has not been really divinized, but it is correlated with the ruling points of the body:
In the head, the One is at the top;
among the seven apertures (of the face), it is the eyes (light);
in the belly, it is the navel (the center of the body);
in the arteries, it is the breath (dynamic principle);
in the five viscera, it is the heart (ruler of the body);
in the limbs, it is the hands, the feet, and the heart (that is, the "three passes" which play a great role in circulation);
in the bones, it is the spinal column (the axis);
in the flesh, it is the intestines and the stomach (which transform food into blood and breath). 10
About a century later than the T'ai-p'ing ching, the Hsiang-erh, a commentary on the Lao-tzu that issued from the Heavenly Masters school, said: "The One that is dispersed is the Breath; but when it is concentrated, it is T'ai-shang Lao-ch|+n (the divinized Lao-tzu) who resides on K'un-lun (the central mountain of the earth) and promulgates the prescriptions of the Tao."11 T'ai-shang Lao-ch|+n is the supreme head of Taoism.
However, most of the Taoist texts depict the One as residing within the body in the form of three Primordial Breathsnamely, the Three-Ones (san-i) or Three Originals (san-y|+an). These are the deities that must be "preserved" or maintained within the body by the means of meditative thought.
II. Preserving the One, Shou-I
"Preserving the One" is sometimes only a synonym for concentration. So therefore the Su-ling ching states that: "In all of your activities and in the thousand and one affairs and occupations, you must constantly think of the One; whether eating or drinking, think of the One; when feeling joyful, think of the One; when afflicted, think of the One; in sickness, think of the One; if walking on water or within fire, think of the One; in anxiety, think of the One."12 In general, it seems that the majority of visual meditation exercises consist in making deities appear so that they can then he reabsorbed, along with the adept, back into a unity. In this way, these exercises recreate a double movement that starts from the One that moves from division to reunionthe process of solve et coagula which is both the origin and end of the world.
Certain texts, however, correspond very exactly with the description of meditation on the One. The most ancient text on this kind of meditation is probably found within the T'ai-p'ing ching, where it is called "On Preserving the Light of the One" or the "Luminous One" (shou-i ming fa). As this text says: "When one preserves the light of the One, one mustas soon as it is perceived as a nascent glowimmediately preserve the image it presents without losing it for an instant. In the beginning it is completely red; then it becomes white and ultimately turns completely green. But one must gather it in order to unify itand inside [the body], everything will be illuminated." This work further specifies that "when the condition of light stops, one stops and that is sufficient." Then everything is found. Moreover, as this text goes on to say, "preserving the One" (shou-i) is related to the daylight order when
the body and soul are united, whereas "preserving the two" (shou-erh) is associated with the nighttime when souls wander about and escape in dreams. "Preserving the One," therefore, clearly indicates that one must unify the various components of the human person. Human nature, as the T'ai-p'ing ching understands it, is composed of three principlesbreath (or the body in other passages), essence, and spirit (all three of which are modalities of a single energy). It is necessary to "reunite the three into one." 13 In contrast with the T'ai-p'ing ching, the Hsiang-erh, sounding much like a sectarian catechism, indicates that the One is not inside man. Rather it is beyond the universe and only passes through the world and man. Thus, "preserving the One" in this text simply consists in observing the precepts promulgated by T'ai-shang lao-ch|+n.14 The Pao-p'u-tzu judges that meditation on the One is essential. Recalling an expression from the Chuang-tzu (chapter 12, which says that if one "penetrates the One, the ten thousand affairs are ended"), the Pao-p'u-tzu affirms that "for a man who knows the One, the ten thousand affairs are ended." This text continues by saying that "because he knows the One, there is not one (thing) which he does not know; because he does not know the One, there is not one (thing) that he knows." Citing the "Holy Scriptures," the text adds that: "If you want to have Long Life, preserve the One in a luminous state; if you think of the One while in extreme hunger, the One will give you grain; and if you think of the One while in extreme thirst, the One will give you broth.'' "Preserving the One" gets rid of nightmares, intimidates the armies of demons, and allows one to leap a thousand li. The Pao-p'u-tzu also sanctions the meditation on the Three-Ones. Details are not given, but the Pao-p'u-tzu says that one must know the height and names of the deities (which are the hypostases of the One) inhabiting the three cinnabar fields.15 The first quotation from Pao-p'u-tzu given above is also found in the Wu-fu ching. Pao-p'u-tzu therefore mentions and knows this text which was a basic scripture of the Ling-pao tradition. The other quoted passage above is derived from an unspecified Taoist text. Pao-p'u-tzu's general principles concerning meditation on the Three-Ones are, therefore, very common to Taoist tradition. On the whole, the Pao-p'u-tzu is a text that can be placed within a very classical lineage of texts very close to the Great Purity tradition.
Huawei fans <user11874@newsgrouper.org.invalid> posted:
The Lao-tzu (chapter 39) proclaims that: "Heaven obtained the One and is clear;/Earth obtained the One and is tranquil. . . . The Ten Thousand Things obtained the One and they have life."
Sometimes the One is equated with the Tao and sometimes it is produced by the Tao. As the Lao-tzu says (chapter 42): "Tao gave birth to the One, the One gave birth to the two. . . ."
When the One is identified with the Tao, it refers to the Void (wu), non-being, or the formless matrix of all things. It is the origin of numbers so that Wang Pi, the celebrated commentator on the Lao-tzu, says that "it is not a number, but numbers are accomplished by it" or that it is the "pole."4
Using language similar to that seen in negative theology, Ho-shang, kung declares (chapter 14): "In Heaven, the One is neither bright nor resplendent. . . under Heaven, the One is neither obscure nor dark. The formless One informs all things."
The One is not, however, only transcendence closed upon itself. It is also the Mother or Origin. In this sense, it corresponds to Water as the source of all life and to Number through which Heaven, along with Water, formed the world. The One is also correlated with the winter solstice, which is the starting point for the renewal of yang (the annual ascension of yang begins in the depths, or the place where north is located in Chinese orientation).
The Tao-shu summarizes these ideas very well by saying: "Heaven with the One has engendered Water to fertilize what is below. The One dwells in the north. Among the seasons, it is winter; among the viscera, it is the kidneys. It is the first number and trigram k'un (three yin lines)." 5 The One is also chaos which is equivalent to the closed-in-upon-itself condition of ta-tung. As chaos, it is, moreover, blind and without the apertures of seine. It dies, as the Chuang-tzu says, when eyes and ears are bored into it. It is furthermore the egg, generated by the union of Heaven and Earth, that contains P'an-ku, the Universal Man. P'an-ku grows up the point where he separates Heaven and Earth and then he falls, his body cut into pieces. The scattered parts of his body constitute the world. Chaos disappears by the press which divides it into two principles and which gives existence to the world.6 The One is the origin of forms and their changes. In the Lieh-tzu, one finds probably the oldest text describing the slow division of unity which ushers in the appearance of the world. This is a process made up of several stages or states of the Original Chaos. As the Lieh-tzu (chapter 1) says: "There was the Great Beginning (t'ai-i), the Great Origin (t'ai-ch'u), the Great Genesis (t'ai-shih), and the Great Simplicity (t''ai-su); at the time of the Great Origin, there was no breath; the Great Origin was the beginning of breath, the Great Genesis was the beginning of form, and the Great Simplicity was the beginning of matter. When breath, form, and matter were were not yet separatedthat is what is called chaos." Certain Taoist texts have embellished this description by attributing various colors and spirits to each of these states of chaos. These same texts also distinguish several kinds of void which succeed each other in order to prepare for the coming of the world.7 But all of these different voids or chaos states are still identical with the One. As one commentary specifically says: "the One is called the Great Void. . ., the Great Genesis (t'ai-shih), and the Great Origin (t'ai-ch'u)."8 These are speculations which attempt to account for the link between the One and the Manyand the unknowable passage from oneness to multiplicity.
Taoist meditation, especially the kind practiced by the adepts of Great Purity, is fundamentally concrete and imagistic. In this sense, it could not be satisfied with metaphysical and intellectual abstractions. The exercises focused on the One betray this difficulty of meditating on what is not representable or not perceptible. These exercises, therefore, often proceed by a method of detoursthat is, the One is divinized or, more often, becomes the object of an imaginative reflection concerned with its development, its dynamic nature, and its relationship with the multiple. An example of this is seen in the many descriptions of chaos passing through diverse phases of development. Most often, however, the One is represented by Three, or Unity-Recovered, which is the manifest form of the One in relationship with the multiple.
The division of the One into two distinct principles is followed by the reunion of the two in order to form a third principle which is the image of harmony and the condition of all life. As the Lao-tzu (chapter 42) says: "The One engendered the Two, the Two engendered the Three, and the Three engendered the ten thousand things." The One therefore manifests itself and fecundates the universe in the form of Three. In the T'ai-p'ing ching, this Three is the infant which is born from the Father and Mother. This Three is the One, and the One is the Three.
In Taoist cosmogony, the One even before the appearance of yin and yang and before it split into two generated the Three Primordial Breaths. This event prefigures both the first and final Unity. Thus these three breaths are also the three supreme deities who reside in the three celestial spheres or highest heavens. These three deities constitute the Onealthough they reside in different locations, carry different names, and appear at different times. These three supreme deities have, in turn, each engendered three others known as the Nine Primordial Breaths, nine superior heavens, or even the "nine souls of the Lord." 9 These new entities are the Nine-Ones.
Three and Nine are the numbers which symbolize Unity and Totality. They are the origin and also the Return to the Origin or the Whole. They are that which fuses the various components of the human person and that which must, in keeping with two important Taoist terms, be "integrated" (ch'|+an) and made to "return" (huan).
The One is also personified and divinized.
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