A book on Auras and Chakras

For as long as I can remember, I've associated colors with nearly everything, especially sound. This summer I realized I also associate colors with people. I figure this is another aspect of synesthesia, and I suspect it may be a way of encoding "extra" information that the brain has no other way to process. So I went looking for a book that might help me figure things out. Most of them were useless. At least three-quarters were along the lines of: "Open up your Aura and (Become Rich/Find a Mate/Cure Cancer/etc.)" A few were sort of beginner's guides that had little more info than I had already found on the internet. Most of the rest were interdisciplinary, so they might be tied in with crystal healing or divination or some other New Agey thing. I finally found one that actually looked useful: Your Aura & Your Chakras: The Owner's Manual, by Karla McLaren.

I like this book. Especially since all she would need to do to move it from "New Age" to "Self Help" is call her exercises "Positive Visualizations" instead of Aura/Chakra work: i.e. there is little obvious nonsense. She has a no-nonsense, down to earth style that is very nearly Taoist. She emphasizes balance and calls most New Age practices idiotic because they tend to unbalance people. Some of her claims seem a bit overboard to me (she cured a schizophrenic?), but those were parts of minor anecdotes and not the focus of the book.

The focus is on energy exercises/visualizations. Grounding. Clearing stale energy out. Defining and separating the chakras. She gives very specific instructions. And I found that most of what she said agreed with things I'd already experienced. I am aware of the energy centers at the sites called "chakras." In taiji, we generally only work with 3 of them (Root, Heart, Third-Eye), and I suspect that neglecting the others is not good.

Perhaps my favorite part of this book is her manner in dealing with this stuff. At one point, she tells readers not to get cocky just because they know something about the aura and others don't. Why? Some people keep their auras balanced all on their own and never need to worry about fixing anything.

At any rate, I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a practical guide to auras, etc.

Yin and Yang

There is neither heaven nor earth,
Only snow,
Falling incessantly.

—Hashing, 27 Dec. Daily Zen calendar

For no obvious reason, I went hunting for yin-yang images this morning. I found some interesting things, as well as some very odd ones. First off, the source of the symbol is the apparent path of the sun through the year. This I had seen before. It is also known as the taiji symbol (or taiji-du, various spellings). Taiji means "supreme ultimate" and it refers to the uppermost support beam in the roof of a house. As the sun moves through the sky, light and shadow switch positions on the slopes of the roof.

Now, some of the more interesting images that I found:
This one comes from a rather hysterical Christian analysis of yin and yang (link is further down). I rather like the confluence of major symbols in it.


According to the site where I found this, this is an actual picture taken by one of the Voyager probes. Mozilla crashed on me and I lost the link, though.







This one is available for purchase as a print (but I would again have to hunt for the link; also lost when Mozilla crashed). I love the way the symbol shows up all over the place in nature.







The last image I'm just going to link to rather than post. It is a 3D stereogram from something called VRillusions. For those who have trouble with stereograms, use the dots above the picture as a guide. Cross your eyes until you get the two dots right on top of each other in the center of your field of vision (you will be "seeing" three dots at this point). Then the 3D image should be visible. Any more, I actually find the guide more distracting than helpful, but that was not always so.




Anyway, the hysterical Christian article got on my nerves, so I'm going to deconstruct it. There is so much wrong with this that I don't even know where to begin. But with all the author's "research", he doesn't even mention the link to the path of the sun, and it sounds like he takes any statement in any book that even mentions "yin/yang" as gospel truth about it. Let's see...

First, something he gets right (by quoting it from another book): "The philosophy of T'ai Chi Ch'uan is rooted in Taoism, which advocates natural effort, and in the I Ching, or Book of Changes. The movements and inner teachings are derived from the complementary relationship between Yin and Yang, two fundamental forces that create and harmonise the Universe by their interaction." He does not mention that "distinguishing full and empty" is what makes taiji one of the most effective martial arts, but he probably didn't bother to research practical applications. He also confuses "palmistry" (a Western art) and "reflexology." Reflexology is about the links of the energy meridians to other parts of the body (usually hands and feet). I've been told of studies of advanced meditators who did energy circulation while hooked up to electrical monitors. There was a measurable flow of electricity right along the meridians described by the Chinese several thousand years ago. The meridians are real (I would like to track that study down, though). I think, though, that reflexology techniques will not work very well in someone whose meridians are blocked.

Most of the rest of the article is completely irrelevant. He confuses Gnostic dualism with yin/yang non-dualism. He insists that the yin/yang has extreme sexual connotations (the Chinese would laugh: the fact that he sees only the sexual implications tells us a great deal about where his mind is). Yin/yang says there must be a balance. Extremism of any flavor indicates imbalance. This includes extreme obsessession with sex as well as the extreme of celibacy. He misses this, and it's probably the most important point. After a great deal more ranting about pagan uses of the symbol (pagans use it! It must be evil! I'm guessing he condemns Christians who dare to put a five-pointed star on their tree as well), we finally get to something relevant to yin/yang.

The yin/yang symbol is quite appropriate today for humanists, New Agers, witches, Satanists, etc. As Michael Tierra, a proponent of the yin/yang theory, states: "The Yin/Yang theory is a teaching method and does not define anything absolute.'' There are seven laws concerning the yin/yang, one of which is: "2. Everything changes."

This is an important item to notice. The idea that "everything changes" does not agree with the Bible. There we find that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 1 3:8). He doesn't change. James 1:17 also states: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Malachi 3:6 tells us: "I am the Lord, I CHANGE NOT."

Another law is: "3. All antagonisms are complementary.'' Again, this is contradictory to Scriptures. This would make Jesus and Satan complementary to each other! What blasphemy!

Well, if God and Christ never change, then they are both dead, for only the dead never change. But that is not what I see in the Bible. God created something. That was a change. Christ came, and the God of the New Testament is clearly different from the God of the Old Testament. That was a change. And, according to Christian doctrine, without Satan to tempt Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, there would have been no need for Christ. How can they not be complementary?

And how about, "'The extreme of any condition will produce signs of the opposite.'' Again applying this to Christ would mean that because He is the extreme in goodness, mercy, compassion, etc., that He will produce signs of hate, injustice, unconcern,etc." One word: Crusades. Argue all that you want that the Crusades were unChristian, but they were inspired by Christian doctrine nonetheless. Also, "'8. Nothing is solely Yin or Yang; everything involves polarity.'' This is stating that nothing is entirely good or entirely evil. This again contradicts the Scripture for in Habbakkuk 1:13 we find that God is 'of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity.' The Bible also tells us that there is no truth in Satan (John 8:44). Obviously, the yin/yang theory is not consistent with God's Word." So all the genocides and mass murders in the Old Testament were "pure" and "good"... Also, how does God's inability to look on iniquity square with the idea that God sees and knows all? If he can't look at iniquity, he must be missing an awful lot. And Satan's most potent weapon has always been pure and simple truth (used in a negative way, to be sure, but true nonetheless).

Some final thoughts: the yin/yang symbol is ancient. By only going to modern sources and uses, this author completely missed the mark. You want to know about yin and yang? Go to the ancient Chinese texts. Better yet, look out your door and watch the sun move across the sky, watch the seasons change, watch the moon go through its cycle. Everything changes. This is a fact of life on Earth. To say that God does not change is to declare that God is dead. That-which-is must change to stay the same, moment to moment, eon to eon.

My take on Christmas (2005)

So…what does Christmas mean to me, a Taoist who stopped labeling herself as a Christian more than a decade ago? To be honest, it’s a question that’s been puzzling me ever since. The Christmas I spent as an atheist was…quite miserable, not to mention confusing. Part of me reacted to the symbology around me while part of me felt disgust, and all of me felt isolated and alienated. However, it was just as confusing after realizing that I believed in something beyond myself, but wasn’t willing to identify that something as the Christian God.

For convenience, I buried myself in pagan symbolism for a while. And, honestly, I still find that more appealing than most Christian symbology. But the pagan rituals and ceremonies… *sighs* I’m just not a ritualistic person, really. And the pagan gods… I see them as constructs of the mind that exist in direct relation to the amount of belief in them. They are useful archetypes and can result in beautiful stories, but they are not the power in the universe. Human awareness and consciousness are more powerful than the ancient gods. And to newly aware humans, the Solstice must have been a powerful symbol: as the nights grew longer and longer, it must have seemed that they might continue getting longer until there was no more day… then came the Solstice, trapping the Sun for three days, and the nights began getting shorter and shorter… And so light had won against darkness for another year, until Midsummer when the darkness would start to gain again.

So I guess I see Christmas as honoring one portion of the neverending cycle of yin and yang. As soon as yin reaches its strongest point, it begins turning to yang, and in that moment of change, there is an instant of pure yang energy. In fact, this happens in every moment, in every breath, in every sunrise…yet it seems appropriate to recognize the yearly progression. We shouldn’t forget the other piece of the cycle, at Midsummer, when yang reaches its strongest point and begins turning to yin. It’s strange, but the Christ-story would fit better at Midsummer than at Winter Solstice. Why? Because the God of the Old Testament is pure and complete yang. No yin at all. Christ had to come to balance that out, to put the yin back into God. To bring balance. Hmmm… by that reckoning, Christ’s coming made God whole. I find that fitting, though I’m sure that thought gives most Christians the screaming heebie-jeebies.

Note: This is where my thoughts on Christmas took me this year. I'd be surprised if they haven't changed some by next Christmas.

Plain potatoes

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

—Alan Watts, 25 Dec. Daily Zen Calendar

Thinking is not experiencing.

If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha

After [his master's death], Ta-hui gathered all the [master's] publications together in front of the temple and made a bonfire of them. What the teacher builds in shape must be destroyed by the disciples in order to keep the teaching from becoming an empty shell. Western philosophers create their own theory then followers continue to repair the outer structure until it no longer resembles the original. In Zen we say, "Kill Buddha and the patriarchs; only then can you give them eternal life."

—from The Iron Flute by Nyogen Senzaki

No dogma. No tradition. Each generation finds the truth anew, unchanged yet unlike that of the previous generation.

The Nature of Strength

The only condition for allowing your internal energy to develop, grow, and become strong is that you must relax yourself and yield to the universe. When you become soft and pliable, your internal energy will gradually begin to develop and accumulate. Eventually you will have the ability to become extremely hard and strong, when it is necessary to do so. To make metal into the hardest steel, you must heat the metal, make it as soft and pliable as liquid, and then refine it into the hardest steel.

—Waysun Liao's commentary on the T'ai Chi Classics

This is one of the seemingly paradoxical things about taiji. The kind of strength most people think of as "strength" is only good against those who are weaker in that kind of strength. Do you have strong muscles? Eventually you'll run into someone who has stronger muscles, or you'll grow old and the muscles will fade. Taiji's strength is something else entirely. It is the strength of bamboo in the hurricane, of pine trees laden with snow, of the wind against your face and the water on the rocks. The Tao te Ching observes that water is the softest of all things, yet it can wear down the rock, which is one of the hardest of all things. So it is with the strength of taiji. Relax, accept the force coming at you, and redirect it. The strength of song, alert relaxation, cannot be overcome. The harder you push on it, the stronger it becomes. And as soon as you stop pushing, it's as if there's nothing there. This is true strength and power. All else is illusion and tomfoolery.

Which reminds me... The taiji motto could easily be "Resistance is Futile." :-) When you resist, you are giving power to your opponent, giving him something to push against. When you accept the force directed at you, you can do anything with it (well, anything if you truly accept it and are truly relaxed; I am not yet able to do this consistently).

More from the Chuang Tzu

When a way is illustrious, it does not guide;
Illustrious, fancy, glowing... it no longer guides, but forces you along and distracts you from what's important.
when humanitarianism is fixated, it is not constructive;
Nothing can be accomplished when you are obsessed with one way of doing things, one way of being right, one way of being.
when honesty is puritanical, it is not trusted;
No one is trusted less than one who can truthfully claim she's never told a lie.
when bravery is vicious, it does not succeed.
Viciousness only distracts from the task at hand.

Beginninglessness

There is a beginning, there is never beginning to have a beginning, there is never beginning to never begin to have a beginning. There is existence, there is nonexistence. There is never beginning the existence of nonexistence, there is never beginning never beginning the existence of nonexistence. Suddenly there are existence and nonexistence, but we don't know if existence or nonexistence actually exist or not.

Now I have said something, but I don't know if what I have said actually says anything or not.

—from the Chuang Tzu, trans. Thomas Cleary

*grins* I finally started reading the Chuang Tzu, and I'm quite enjoying it. The link in the sidebar is to a different translation. So far I like the Thomas Cleary translation better, but it's always nice to be able to compare. One odd thing: the on-line version has numbered chapters and verses, and the Thomas Cleary version does not.

Experience

Silence is better than holiness, so one action is better than all the sutras. If you are attached to words and speech, you won't understand a melon's taste; you will only understand its outside form. If you want to understand a melon's taste, then cut a piece and put it in your mouth. A melon grows and ripens by itself; it never explains to human beings its situation and condition.

If you are attached to the sutras, you only understand Buddha's speech. If you want to attain Buddha's mind, then from moment to moment put down your opinion, condition, and situation. Only help all beings. Then Buddha appears in front of you. This is enlightenment and freedom from life and death.

—Commentary from Zen: The Perfect Companion by Seung Sahn

Words are not the answer. Words separate us from reality, place it at (at least) one remove. Experience the world. Until you've experienced the world, all the words in the world are meaningless.