There is a chinese festival call the hungry ghosts festival but this festival is completely forgotten in China & only celebrated by overseas chinese in south east asia. The real name for this festival is called amending & adjusting the soul. Amending & adjusting the soul is core concept in Taoism. ( to transform the soul by alchemy process) . For example, in chinese medicine, we use accupunture needle treatment on the spirit channels to adjust & amend the spirits ( or soul ) to heal our pain or disease. In martial arts ( internal or external) all the movements are connected to amending & adjusting our spirits ( soul ) . The alchemy process in martial arts is quite stunning as generally those who are masters look very very young. In meditation, the alchemy process is slower. In shamanism, the alchemy process is instant & most magical.
Jason is a great teacher. Seems to me the difference between recitation and visualization is the difference between earth and water element as taught by Bardon. Both should be contemplated as well as the liminal/ gradiated elemental spaces between them.
Reciting sadhanas help when you are teaching hundreds of people at the same time. Coz eventually it seeps into your subconscious then one day you can visualise or do the rituals effortlessly with your subconscious just voicing the script. Also, it keeps the little monks still and engaged. 😊
In the taoist language, the word consciousness is called Jing- Shen, direct translation meaning Sperm - Mind. We can say consciousness is actually the mind of the sperm. The clue is that consciousness is somehow related to biology or our human body. Therefore as a living human our body cannot be separated from the our consciousness . Due to post heaven time & space, our soul also deteriorate over time. By the age of 50 we start to become impotent & some where around mid 60, you will be shocked to find suddenly you hv aged more than 10 years in just a few months. Therefore, taoist meditation maybe helpful to reverse this entropy. In fact taoist meditation is spiritual medicine. In old people , as the sperm spirit is very weak and deteriorated, they tend to be forgetful or can be said partially lost consciousness.
There is a classic chinese novel call The Journey to the West or shown in movie as the monkey king. This classic is a Zen buddhist teaching. By the way , Zen is the ancient chinese name for buddhism. Chan is a mandarin word. Mandarin is only 1000 years but chinese hv 4000 years of history. In this classic, the monk was accompanied by 3 god like human figures on a pilgrimage to India . The 3 gods are the monkey king, the human like pig and a fierce angry warrior. The main objective is to protect the monk. During the journey, the gods hv to fight against demons, bad people also beautiful women & so forth. In fact its like a great adventure. The monkey will display great courage to protect the monk. The pig is attracted to every women he meet. The fierce warrior will get angry all the time. The noval is trying to tell us that the monk is alone on his journey. All the 3 gods represent the soul of the monk. Jing ( pig god), Qi ( warrior ) & shen ( monkey). So we are all like the monk going on a pilgrimage but our soul has gone astray. You see the movie, u will understand
In fact today, taoism is a declining religion & practically dead in China. However, Shamanic taoism is still widely practised by overseas chinese in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore & certain of Thailand. If you visit Malaysia or Phukat during the taoist calender of 9 month, there are very big shamanic celebration called the nine emperors god festival. In fact bcos of our shamanic practice of whorshipping our ancestors spirit & also shamanism being practised in the taoist temples , we chinese are sometime confused with regard to incarnation as preached in buddhism. The problem is bcos from shamanism we do know the following : I) The god spirit can only enters the shaman body from the top of the skull not from anywhere of the body. So incarnation may not be possible bcos the baby skull is in the mother wound so any outside spirit cannot enter & reach the baby. II) In taoism , we also whorshipped Kuan Tay , a general who lived during the china three kingdoms period. When his spirit entered the shaman body, the shaman in trance will start behaving exactly like he was living a few thousand years ago & start swinging the spear , remembering his past live. I dont think he know , he is in Malaysia. Meaning the spirit will remember past live. Therefore some chinese do still believe in incarnation whereas a lot do not. But anyway, we still called our self buddhists. Buddhism derived from hinduism but hinduism is not a shamanic religion so their understanding of spirit maybe different.
Very often we hear people saying , body, mind and soul. I think this statement is very confusing bcos it appears we are trying to say the body & mind is different from the soul. In fact human has 3 parts which is the body, its alive and has the mind. All these 3 are made up our soul. Its very difficult to imagine that the mind is our soul. Normally, we think the mind is in the brain. You know the ancient greek drew the symbol of heart to denote love. Love is from our soul, so the ancient greek knew the soul is located in the heart. Similarly our mind is also from our soul so our mind should be located in the heart not in the brain. Our mind spirit also carry with it our consciousness. The taoist believe that every night our mind spirit will leave our body & find its way to the pre- heaven. ( different dimension ). Therefore, we lost consciousness during sleep . Sleep can be considered as dreaming & there is nothingness. Ocassionally you may hv flash of images. Sometime during meditation, the mind spirit may also leave the body , very possible you may be sleeping during meditation. I am telling this is bcos during the shamanic ritual , the shaman mind spirit also leave the body.
The chinese people consider the Yellow Emperor as the founder of Taoism about 4 thousand years ago. He is the father of chinese medicine, creating the chinese writing for divination & also the chinese calender. He was also the first person to practise shamanic elixir meditation or taoist meditation. And most important, he was also a shaman. In fact, in very ancient china, all the emperors were shaman. Chinese people called their emperor the son of heaven . In taoism, heaven is like god. Therefore, they think the emperor is a god. But in later period, the emperors just forget about their role as shaman.So taoism is very deep rooted in shamanism. But somehow about 2 thousands years later, taoist philosophy began to appear the most famous being the Tao Teh Ching written in poems. The Tao Teh Ching is very different from the earlier taoism bcos shamanism is completely abandoned. So if anyone new to taoism , and start studing the Tao Teh Ching, he will hv the shock of his life to discover later that taoism is indeed a shamanic religion. They will never able to reconcile to this fact. But taoism being shamanic, actually is not really surprising bcos if you know ancient history , it is fact that the ancient turks of china, the hua ( modern day chinese ) & the tibetans are very closely related people. They all hv very deep shamanic roots.
In shamanic taoism, human is viewed as a bio-spiritual being. Meaning there are 2 parts. The body and the spirits (human soul).The spirits or the human soul is comprised of Jing , Qi , Shen. In fact to understand human soul , you must also know the nature of the animal soul. Actually , for animals & plants, they hv similar Jing, Qi, Shen ( soul ) as the human. But there is one very important difference that make us human. The difference is in the shen (mind spirit). The human mind spirit has the EGO which is absent in animal & plant soul. This EGO can seen in the human behaviour like : I) Shame II) Honour III) Morality IV) Able to formulate complex concept. If we dont hv the above, we will be like animal. For example, if there is no shame, most likely we will walking naked around. So why we cannot walk naked is bcos our human soul does not allowed it. Unlike other religion , which considered the human soul to be holy. In taoism there is no such thing. What ever we do as a human is the reflection of our soul. The shen (mind spirit) is generally the reflection of our each individual behaviour.This can be proof from the taoist shamanic practice.
You can find somethings from the following : I ) Carl Jung work on psycology based on a taoist text , The Secrect of the Golden Flower II ) In U tube , just type on the search engin, 9 Emperor gods
@@AA-ld1cf You can check the following : I) Carl Jung work on psycology based on the taoist text- The Secrect of the Golden Flower II) In Utube go to search engin & type nine emperor gods festival
I m a malaysian chinese, my religion can be described as 80% taoist and 20% Zen or chinese buddhist. But like most chinese , we dont say we are taoist but instead call our self buddhist. The reason being bcos taoism has very deep shamanic roots & shamanism is looked down upon in modern time.But taoism is so much embedded in our culture, that we cannot be called a chinese unless you practised taoism. that is the reason we 80% taoist in religion. The chinese writing, astronomy & martial arts are all derived from the shamanic taoist practices. However most important concepts from shamanism is chinese medicine & spiritual medicine (taoist meditation). In taoism , spiritual & human health is inseperable. Meaning a man cannot achieve high spirituality if he is in poor health. So if a very sick man claimed that he is enlightened, probably is not true. I will tell you the reasons why. In taoism, we believe that when a baby is born , there is a premodial light which is genenatic from the parents. As the baby grows in the wound, this light began to split into 3 spirits : I) Jing ( sperm ) or gene spirit II) Qi - life force spirit III) Shen- Mind or consiouness spirit Since the 3 spirits derived from the same source ie the premodial light. The 3 spirits are actually interchangeable & moved in a pattern. In chinese we called this the dragon soul or the human soul. That is the reason the spirituality cannot be seperated from health bcos the sperm spirit is part of the dragon soul.The sperm when in spirit form is invisible & only can be seen when condensed into sperm for reproduction.
From the taoist shamanic practice, we are also able to get an insight what is really consciousness. When we are alive , we are conscious bcos the Jing, Qi , Shen interact & moved together. But upon death, the taoist beleive that the 3 spirits will burst out from the top skull spirit channel & separated. In fact our spirits also die off in time. ( integrate with the light eventually) . In exceptional cases the shen spirit is able to exist without the body. In the taoist temples, we hv many deities who are actually able to maintain their mind spirits after their death. If you look at these deities , do you think they are conscious. From my rational thinking, I dont think they are conscious. Unlike a plant when is placed in a dark place it will try to branch out to someplace there is light. We then know the plant is conscious. But in the case of deities this not so. Therefore most likely is not conscious. You may pray to the deities but actually there is nothing , only for your consolation & psycology purposes only. That is the reason, you need shamanism which I will explain later.
There are certain nature of the soul, we hv to know before we can understand shamanic taoism. Sometime, part of our soul can get separated & does not want to come back. I give an example, hv you observe a man with mental problem or mad man. Why he is mad is bcos part of his soul has already departed. You can say his soul is partly damaged, consequently his EGO is also having problem. With a damaged EGO, the mad man sometime does not know he is naked.In taoism, we know that unless his departed part of the soul is willing to come back the mad man will never recover. However, very often the doctor will try to cure the mad man by electrofying his brain.But unfortunately is done in the wrong place bcos the mind spirit is not located in the brain. In taoism, the mind spirit is located in the heart region which is the seat of our soul. I think if we do meditation, it is very important to know the location of the mind spirit.
In taoism, we worship many deities like Hinduism. But we use shamanism to connect with deities. Meaning you don't hv to believe but witness yourself the existence of the deities. The most popular deities are : 1) The nine emperor gods 2) Kuan Tay ( god of war ) 3) Kuan Yin bodhisattva 4) Mazu ( taoist goddess of sea) 5) Tai Seng Ya ( monkey god ) 6) Haw Ya ( tiger god ) 7) Nezha ( 13 years old god) 8) Ji Kong ( Zen monk ) Most people are only familiar with human consciousness but totally unaware of deity consciousness. You will be very shocking if you witness the deity consciousness. You will come to realise human are not god.
Is a fact that 80% of the men over 50 are impotent to various degrees. This is bcos their spirits are not enlightened. In taoism meditation , one can cure impotency bcos the meditation technique is to transform the 3 spirits back to the direction of premodial light. By doing so will reverse aging & can become younger. If you succeed, you are considered an immortal but you will still die.So is quite different from buddhist meditation. In children , their 3 spirits still hv a lot of light, there is why they r so healthy & innocent. Infact children are half god half human. Their mind spirit still hv light & their thought is very pure. But as we grow older, the spirits moved further & further away from the light. Our mind become very conscious & clever . The more clever we are , the more problems we faced thus the human misery.
Have you seen the famous Yin & Yang symbol. This is the taoist symbol of heaven. The Yin is the pre- heaven and the Yang is the post- heaven. This is the taoist concept of creation. In the west is called duality. We believe all things are created by the process of heavenly duality . We can say , pre- heaven represents no time or space, perfect condition, nothingness, unconscious. Whereas post - heaven represents time & space, chaos, consciousness ( the ten thousand things). The pre- heaven which is nothingness give rise to post heaven consciousness consisting of the ten thousand things.The Tao is actually the heavenly creation process which is still going. The ancient chinese has the saying. Let heaven determines your fate. If we look up into the sky , is very vast bcos this is post heaven there is time & space . For example , we need a rocket to fly to the moon. But pre- heaven from rational thinking must be in a different dimension maybe very very near to us. You will understand in shamanism why the pre heaven has no time & space and very near us. . We will also know the nature of our soul how it react in the post heaven. One thing for sure, human are constrainted by the post heaven element, therefore we are not god.
Have we ever wondered why our consciousness completely disappeared when we are sleeping ? . Look like something is able to control our consciousness. Are you also aware that through shamanism, you can witness the consciousness of the deity which is very different from human consciousness. The human consciousness cannot transcend space & time.(I will explain later) But the deity consciousness is able to do that. So human are not god.
Nowadays, people refer to Qi as energy & Jing as substance. I think is a deviation from the original shamanic concept. Shamanism is generally about spirits & medicine. Spirit is very different from energy. Spirit cannot be defined by science whereas energy can be calculated by science like e=mc2. Genetic Spirit has intelligent, memory & it has conciousness . Can be say is magical & a miracle. So in taoism, spirit is central to our belief. But spirit is different from the GOD as defined in other religions. In taoism, the nearest to defination of GOD is heaven. ( Tian ) . We dont believe that after we die, we go & live with God forever. Buddhism rejected the concept of god totally. Thus taoism & buddhism is similar in this respect.
There is a chinese festival call the hungry ghosts festival but this festival is completely forgotten in China & only celebrated by overseas chinese in south east asia. The real name for this festival is called amending & adjusting the soul. Amending & adjusting the soul is core concept in Taoism. ( to transform the soul by alchemy process) . For example, in chinese medicine, we use accupunture needle treatment on the spirit channels to adjust & amend the spirits ( or soul ) to heal our pain or disease. In martial arts ( internal or external) all the movements are connected to amending & adjusting our spirits ( soul ) . The alchemy process in martial arts is quite stunning as generally those who are masters look very very young. In meditation, the alchemy process is slower. In shamanism, the alchemy process is instant & most magical.
Hell yeah
Jason is a great teacher. Seems to me the difference between recitation and visualization is the difference between earth and water element as taught by Bardon. Both should be contemplated as well as the liminal/ gradiated elemental spaces between them.
Thank you for this rich talk💝
Reciting sadhanas help when you are teaching hundreds of people at the same time. Coz eventually it seeps into your subconscious then one day you can visualise or do the rituals effortlessly with your subconscious just voicing the script. Also, it keeps the little monks still and engaged. 😊
rest in present awareness be still close eyes listen to your breathing.
In the taoist language, the word consciousness is called Jing- Shen, direct translation meaning Sperm - Mind. We can say consciousness is actually the mind of the sperm. The clue is that consciousness is somehow related to biology or our human body. Therefore as a living human our body cannot be separated from the our consciousness .
Due to post heaven time & space, our soul also deteriorate over time. By the age of 50 we start to become impotent & some where around mid 60, you will be shocked to find suddenly you hv aged more than 10 years in just a few months. Therefore, taoist meditation maybe helpful to reverse this entropy. In fact taoist meditation is spiritual medicine.
In old people , as the sperm spirit is very weak and deteriorated, they tend to be forgetful or can be said partially lost consciousness.
There is a classic chinese novel call The Journey to the West or shown in movie as the monkey king. This classic is a Zen buddhist teaching. By the way , Zen is the ancient chinese name for buddhism. Chan is a mandarin word. Mandarin is only 1000 years but chinese hv 4000 years of history.
In this classic, the monk was accompanied by 3 god like human figures on a pilgrimage to India . The 3 gods are the monkey king, the human like pig and a fierce angry warrior. The main objective is to protect the monk. During the journey, the gods hv to fight against demons, bad people also beautiful women & so forth. In fact its like a great adventure. The monkey will display great courage to protect the monk. The pig is attracted to every women he meet. The fierce warrior will get angry all the time.
The noval is trying to tell us that the monk is alone on his journey. All the 3 gods represent the soul of the monk. Jing ( pig god), Qi ( warrior ) & shen ( monkey).
So we are all like the monk going on a pilgrimage but our soul has gone astray.
You see the movie, u will understand
Hello friend. I'm incaraging you to take your notes seriously and become a writer. You have very useful information to share. Thank you ❤️
In fact today, taoism is a declining religion & practically dead in China. However, Shamanic taoism is still widely practised by overseas chinese in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore & certain of Thailand. If you visit Malaysia or Phukat during the taoist calender of 9 month, there are very big shamanic celebration called the nine emperors god festival.
In fact bcos of our shamanic practice of whorshipping our ancestors spirit & also shamanism being practised in the taoist temples , we chinese are sometime confused with regard to incarnation as preached in buddhism. The problem is bcos from shamanism we do know the following :
I) The god spirit can only enters the shaman body from the top of the skull not from anywhere of the body. So incarnation may not be possible bcos the baby skull is in the mother wound so any outside spirit cannot enter & reach the baby.
II) In taoism , we also whorshipped Kuan Tay , a general who lived during the china three kingdoms period. When his spirit entered the shaman body, the shaman in trance will start behaving exactly like he was living a few thousand years ago & start swinging the spear , remembering his past live. I dont think he know , he is in Malaysia. Meaning the spirit will remember past live.
Therefore some chinese do still believe in incarnation whereas a lot do not. But anyway, we still called our self buddhists. Buddhism derived from hinduism but hinduism is not a shamanic religion so their understanding of spirit maybe different.
Very often we hear people saying , body, mind and soul. I think this statement is very confusing bcos it appears we are trying to say the body & mind is different from the soul. In fact human has 3 parts which is the body, its alive and has the mind. All these 3 are made up our soul. Its very difficult to imagine that the mind is our soul. Normally, we think the mind is in the brain.
You know the ancient greek drew the symbol of heart to denote love. Love is from our soul, so the ancient greek knew the soul is located in the heart. Similarly our mind is also from our soul so our mind should be located in the heart not in the brain.
Our mind spirit also carry with it our consciousness. The taoist believe that every night our mind spirit will leave our body & find its way to the pre- heaven. ( different dimension ). Therefore, we lost consciousness during sleep . Sleep can be considered as dreaming & there is nothingness. Ocassionally you may hv flash of images. Sometime during meditation, the mind spirit may also leave the body , very possible you may be sleeping during meditation. I am telling this is bcos during the shamanic ritual , the shaman mind spirit also leave the body.
The chinese people consider the Yellow Emperor as the founder of Taoism about 4 thousand years ago. He is the father of chinese medicine, creating the chinese writing for divination & also the chinese calender. He was also the first person to practise shamanic elixir meditation or taoist
meditation. And most important, he was also a shaman. In fact, in very ancient china, all the emperors were shaman. Chinese people called their emperor the son of heaven . In taoism, heaven is like god. Therefore, they think the emperor is a god. But in later period, the emperors just forget about their role as shaman.So taoism is very deep rooted in shamanism.
But somehow about 2 thousands years later, taoist philosophy began to appear the most famous being the Tao Teh Ching written in poems. The Tao Teh Ching is very different from the earlier taoism bcos shamanism is completely abandoned. So if anyone new to taoism , and start studing the Tao Teh Ching, he will hv the shock of his life to discover later that taoism is indeed a shamanic religion. They will never able to reconcile to this fact.
But taoism being shamanic, actually is not really surprising bcos if you know ancient history , it is fact that the ancient turks of china, the hua ( modern day chinese ) & the tibetans are very closely related people. They all hv very deep shamanic roots.
In shamanic taoism, human is viewed as a bio-spiritual being. Meaning there are 2 parts. The body and the spirits (human soul).The spirits or the human soul is comprised of Jing , Qi , Shen. In fact to understand human soul , you must also know the nature of the animal soul. Actually , for animals & plants, they hv similar Jing, Qi, Shen ( soul ) as the human. But there is one very important difference that make us human. The difference is in the shen (mind spirit). The human mind spirit has the EGO which is absent in animal & plant soul. This EGO can seen in the human behaviour like :
I) Shame
II) Honour
III) Morality
IV) Able to formulate complex concept.
If we dont hv the above, we will be like animal. For example, if there is no shame, most likely we will walking naked around. So why we cannot walk naked is bcos our human soul does not allowed it.
Unlike other religion , which considered the human soul to be holy. In taoism there is no such thing. What ever we do as a human is the reflection of our soul. The shen (mind spirit) is generally the reflection of our each individual behaviour.This can be proof from the taoist shamanic practice.
Thank you for your information. I’m curious to learn more, can you direct me to some resources to find out more about shamanic taoism? Thank you.
You can find somethings from the following :
I ) Carl Jung work on psycology based on a taoist text , The Secrect of the Golden Flower
II ) In U tube , just type on the search engin, 9 Emperor gods
@@AA-ld1cf You can check the following :
I) Carl Jung work on psycology based on the taoist text- The Secrect of the Golden Flower
II) In Utube go to search engin & type nine emperor gods festival
I m a malaysian chinese, my religion can be described as 80% taoist and 20% Zen or chinese buddhist. But like most chinese , we dont say we are taoist but instead call our self buddhist. The reason being bcos taoism has very deep shamanic roots & shamanism is looked down upon in modern time.But taoism is so much embedded in our culture, that we cannot be called a chinese unless you practised taoism. that is the reason we 80% taoist in religion. The chinese writing, astronomy & martial arts are all derived from the shamanic taoist practices. However most important concepts from shamanism is chinese medicine & spiritual medicine (taoist meditation). In taoism , spiritual & human health is inseperable. Meaning a man cannot achieve high spirituality if he is in poor health. So if a very sick man claimed that he is enlightened, probably is not true. I will tell you the reasons why.
In taoism, we believe that when a baby is born , there is a premodial light which is genenatic from the parents. As the baby grows in the wound, this light began to split into 3 spirits :
I) Jing ( sperm ) or gene spirit
II) Qi - life force spirit
III) Shen- Mind or consiouness spirit
Since the 3 spirits derived from the same source ie the premodial light. The 3 spirits are actually interchangeable & moved in a pattern. In chinese we called this the dragon soul or the human soul. That is the reason the spirituality cannot be seperated from health bcos the sperm spirit is part of the dragon soul.The sperm when in spirit form is invisible & only can be seen when condensed into sperm for reproduction.
From the taoist shamanic practice, we are also able to get an insight what is really consciousness. When we are alive , we are conscious bcos the Jing, Qi , Shen interact & moved together. But upon death, the taoist beleive that the 3 spirits will burst out from the top skull spirit channel & separated. In fact our spirits also die off in time. ( integrate with the light eventually) . In exceptional cases the shen spirit is able to exist without the body.
In the taoist temples, we hv many deities who are actually able to maintain their mind spirits after their death. If you look at these deities , do you think they are conscious. From my rational thinking, I dont think they are conscious. Unlike a plant when is placed in a dark place it will try to branch out to someplace there is light. We then know the plant is conscious. But in the case of deities this not so. Therefore most likely is not conscious. You may pray to the deities but actually there is nothing , only for your consolation & psycology purposes only. That is the reason, you need shamanism which I will explain later.
There are certain nature of the soul, we hv to know before we can understand shamanic taoism. Sometime, part of our soul can get separated & does not want to come back. I give an example, hv you observe a man with mental problem or mad man. Why he is mad is bcos part of his soul has already departed. You can say his soul is partly damaged, consequently his EGO is also having problem. With a damaged EGO, the mad man sometime does not know he is naked.In taoism, we know that unless his departed part of the soul is willing to come back the mad man will never recover.
However, very often the doctor will try to cure the mad man by electrofying his brain.But unfortunately is done in the wrong place bcos the mind spirit is not located in the brain. In taoism, the mind spirit is located in the heart region which is the seat of our soul. I think if we do meditation, it is very important to know the location of the mind spirit.
In taoism, we worship many deities like Hinduism. But we use shamanism to connect with deities. Meaning you don't hv to believe but witness yourself the existence of the deities. The most popular deities are :
1) The nine emperor gods
2) Kuan Tay ( god of war )
3) Kuan Yin bodhisattva
4) Mazu ( taoist goddess of sea)
5) Tai Seng Ya ( monkey god )
6) Haw Ya ( tiger god )
7) Nezha ( 13 years old god)
8) Ji Kong ( Zen monk )
Most people are only familiar with human consciousness but totally unaware of deity consciousness. You will be very shocking if you witness the deity consciousness. You will come to realise human are not god.
Is a fact that 80% of the men over 50 are impotent to various degrees. This is bcos their spirits are not enlightened. In taoism meditation , one can cure impotency bcos the meditation technique is to transform the 3 spirits back to the direction of premodial light. By doing so will reverse aging & can become younger. If you succeed, you are considered an immortal but you will still die.So is quite different from buddhist meditation. In children , their 3 spirits still hv a lot of light, there is why they r so healthy & innocent. Infact children are half god half human. Their mind spirit still hv light & their thought is very pure. But as we grow older, the spirits moved further & further away from the light. Our mind become very conscious & clever . The more clever we are , the more problems we faced thus the human misery.
Keep telling what other people taught him in a vague way
Have you seen the famous Yin & Yang symbol. This is the taoist symbol of heaven. The Yin is the pre- heaven and the Yang is the post- heaven. This is the taoist concept of creation. In the west is called duality. We believe all things are created by the process of heavenly duality .
We can say , pre- heaven represents no time or space, perfect condition, nothingness, unconscious. Whereas post - heaven represents time & space, chaos, consciousness ( the ten thousand things).
The pre- heaven which is nothingness give rise to post heaven consciousness consisting of the ten thousand things.The Tao is actually the heavenly creation process which is still going. The ancient chinese has the saying. Let heaven determines your fate.
If we look up into the sky , is very vast bcos this is post heaven there is time & space . For example , we need a rocket to fly to the moon. But pre- heaven from rational thinking must be in a different dimension maybe very very near to us. You will understand in shamanism why the pre heaven has no time & space and very near us. . We will also know the nature of our soul how it react in the post heaven. One thing for sure, human are constrainted by the post heaven element, therefore we are not god.
Have we ever wondered why our consciousness completely disappeared when we are sleeping ? . Look like something is able to control our consciousness. Are you also aware that through shamanism, you can witness the consciousness of the deity which is very different from human consciousness. The human consciousness cannot transcend space & time.(I will explain later) But the deity consciousness is able to do that. So human are not god.
Ok fool keep rambling
Nowadays, people refer to Qi as energy & Jing as substance. I think is a deviation from the original shamanic concept. Shamanism is generally about spirits & medicine. Spirit is very different from energy. Spirit cannot be defined by science whereas energy can be calculated by science like e=mc2. Genetic Spirit has intelligent, memory & it has conciousness . Can be say is magical & a
miracle.
So in taoism, spirit is central to our belief. But spirit is different from the GOD as defined in other religions. In taoism, the nearest to defination of GOD is heaven. ( Tian ) . We dont believe that after we die, we go & live with God forever. Buddhism rejected the concept of god totally. Thus taoism & buddhism is similar in this respect.