TAOISM

A.  Phases 1.  Inward Training This is concerned with cosmology and the inner transformation of the individual leading to the attainment of ‘mystical gnosis.” Also known as the “individualist” phase because of its almost total absence of social and political thought. 2.  Primitivist This adds a political and social philosophy that recommends the return to a more primitive and simple life-style associated with small agrain communities. 3.  Syncretist emphasis on the precise coordination of the political and cosmis orders by the thus-enlightened rules.

B.  concepts 1. Qi (vital energy) A tenuous distinctions between energy and matter and body and mind. Qi is the universal energy/matter/fluid out of which all phenomena in the universe are constructed, both physical and psychological. Human beings are made up of system constituted of varying densities of qi, such as the skeletal structure, the skin, flesh and musculature, the breath, Five Viscera (wuzang) of qi that form our inner physiology and include the physical organs of lungs, kidneys, liver, gall bladder, and spleen and the various psychological states that make up our constantly changing continuum of experience, from rage and lust to complete tranquility.  It is the basis of our health, vitality, and psychological well-being. 2. Xin (heart) locus for the entire range of conscious experience, including perception, thought, emotion, desire and intuition. Alternately translated as mind. 3. Shen (numen or spirit) This is the basic conscious agent or power within human beings. 4. Dao (the Way) This Way is the ultimate power in the cosmos, papdoxically transcentdent yet immanent.  It mysteriously operateswithin the cosmos to facilitate the generation of all phenomena and to serve as the inner guiding force throughout every moment of life.

C.  Self-cultivation 1. a systematic process of negating ordinary experience that is based in the ego-self.  The removal of basic elements of self-consciousness as perceptions, emotions, desires and thoughts. 2.  This leads to states of tranquility until the adept experiences a fully concentrated inner consciousness of unity, filled with light and clarity and not tied to an individual self.

D.  The Scripture of the Yellow Court 1.  The focus is on the corporeal divinities believed to reside in one’s physical form and on the means they may be cultivated so produce within and you can escape from one’s mortal frame of a refined and purified embryo, an etherealized self. 2.  Central  to this is the practice of ‘inner vision’.  The adept can turn guise within and fix distinctly and sensibly the gods of his body.  3.  The Five Viscera These are the liver, heart, spleen, lungs and kidneys which are coordinated with the Five Direction, five colors, five flavors, five sacred peaks, etc. The spleen symbolizing the center is known by the name Yellow Court. 4.  Three Cinnabar-fields (dan tian) These are situated in the brain, near the heart, and below the navel, control the three major divisions of the body and also to the nine palaces (jiu gong) of the brain. Conduction and circulation of the vital breath through the somatic passages (meridians), along with the swallowing of saliva and channeling of other bodily humors – the one a yang action , the other yin – are critical practices nourishing and harmonizing these inner organs and spirits. This doctrine is often puzzling and sometimes incomprehensible and you need private training with a teacher.

E. Way of the Celestial Masters

This is another school of Taoist philosophy.


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