15 replies to this topic

[oak]

While the original Neijing tu provenance is unclear, it probably dates from the 19th century (Komjathy, Louis. 2004). All received copies derive from an engraved stele dated 1886 in Beijing's White Cloud Temple 白雲觀 that records how Liu Chengyin 柳誠印 based it on an old silk scroll discovered in a library on Mount Song (in Henan).

-huge black&white version
-big color version

translations by Komjathy, Louis



1. Summit of the great peak
2. Prolonging longevity [and [attaining] immortality and Buddhahood
3. Ni-wan Palace
4. A grain of millet containing the world
5. [Prolonging longevity and] [attaining] immortality and Buddhahood
6. Prefecture of rising yang
7. Mountain of nine peaks
8. Numinous terrace of the thickly-meshed net
9. Eyebrows of white-headed Lao-tzu hanging down to earth
10. If you orient yourself towards the mysterious, the mystrious will be attained
11. Outside this mystery, there is no mystery
12. Cavity of the Numinous peak
13. Upper pass of jade perfection
14. Origin of the ascending method
15. Larynx
16. Governing vessel (tu-mai)
17. Cavity of the two kidney storehouses
18. Mountains and streams decocting in a half-sheng cauldron
19. The twelve-storied pagoda stores the secret transmission
20. Ch'i sickness...
21. ... over the descending bridge
22. The blue eyed foreign monk holding up the heavens
23. Conception vessel (jen-mai)
24.
Fa-tsang says:
"Violet eyes" clarify the four great oceans;
the white light pervades Mount Sumeru
25.
Tz'u-shih (Maitreya Buddha) says:
"Between the eyebrows white light constantly emanates;
this can liberate all sentient beings from the suffering of ceaseless reincarnation"



26. Mysterious pass hidden in fifty regions
27. The spirit of the heart os [called] Elixir Origin (Tan-yüan), given name Guearding the Numen (Shou-ling).
28. Cowherder constellation
29. Ken-mountain .. earth
30. This field [is the earth of [I]ken[/I]-mountain]
31. Engraving the stone, the lad holds a string of cash
32. The spirit of the gall bladder is [called] Dragon Glory (Lung-yao), given name Majestic Illumination (Wei-ming).
33. The spirit of lungs is [called] Brilliant Splendor (Hua-hao), given name Emptiness Complete (Hsü-ch'eng).
34. The spirit of liver is [called] Dragon Mist (Leng-yen), given name Containing Illumination (Han-ming).
35.
I am properly and attentively cultivating my own field -
Inside there are numinous sprouts that live for ten thousand years.
The flowers resemble yellow gold, their color not uncommon;
The seeds are like jade grain, their fruits perfectly round.
Cultivation completely depends on the earth of the Central Palace;
Irrigation necessarily relies on the spring in the Upper Valley.
The practice is completed suddenly and I attain the great Tao -
I wander carefree over land and water as an immortal of P'eng-lai
36. Weaving Maiden transporting and transferring
37. The spirit of the kidneys is [called] Mysterious Obscurity (Hsüan-ming), given name Nourishing the Child (Yü-ying).
38. The spirit of the spleen is [called] Continuously Existing (Ch'ang-tsai), given name Ethereal Soul Pavilion (Hun-t'ing).
39. Central elixir field
40. Iron ox plowing the field where coins are sown



41. Correct elixir field
42. K'an-water flowing in reverse
43.
Repeatedly, constantly, [the treadmill] is peddled in cycles;
When the mechanism revolves, the water flows eastward.
The water, ten-thousand fathoms deep, is seen straight to its bottom;
A sweet spring bubbles up, rising to the summit of Southern Mountain.
44. The mysterious yin-yang treadmill
45.
The iron ox plows the field where golden coins are sown;
Engraving the Stone, the young lad holds a string of cash.
A single grain of millet contains the entire world;
Mountains and streams are decocted in a half-sheng cauldron.
The eyebrows of white-headed Lao-tzu hang down to earth,
And the blue-eyed foreign monk holds up the heavens.
Orient yourself towards the mysterious and it is realized -
Outside of this mystery there is no other mystery.


--------------------
source and more information:
- NeichingT'u.pdf
(should have no copyright issues, same link can be found on the wikipedia page)

Edited by oak, 27 February 2010 - 11:18 PM.
typos

[gibil]

Do you have a high resolution copy of that image that you can link me?

Never mind I see that you did do this, I have to make a copy of this image it's just amazing.

Edited by gibil, 27 February 2010 - 11:06 PM.
oops

[oak]

gibil said:

Do you have a high resolution copy of that image that you can link me?

there's a link to both up there just below the two pics, kinda hard to notice though

Quote

-huge black&white version
-big color version

[Qaexl]

oak said:

While the original Neijing tu provenance is unclear, it probably dates from the 19th century (Komjathy, Louis. 2004). All received copies derive from an engraved stele dated 1886 in Beijing's White Cloud Temple 白雲觀 that records how Liu Chengyin 柳誠印 based it on an old silk scroll discovered in a library on Mount Song (in Henan).

Awesome, I have been looking for a copy ever since I lost track of a good one online. There are probably some deliberate mistakes put in there, makes it more of a treasure hunt. Do you have a source for the hanzi in utf8 (not just those English translations)?

Edit Never mind, I see that PDF... good stuff, most of the scans I've seen of this were unintelligible.

-Qaexl

[oak]

yea if you have any insights on the "hidden" meaning behind any of the characters, please do share sometime if you wish. while i don't doubt Louis Komjathys ability or sincerity, i have a sneaking suspicion there might be even more to some of it than is written in here.

i don't know whether the text was originally written by whoever first draw the picture, or the guy who found it and preserved it into the stela. but whoever it was knew their stuff, that much is evident from even these translations ... still i wonder since that is one helluva picture.

[Qaexl]

oak said:

yea if you have any insights on the "hidden" meaning behind any of the characters, please do share sometime if you wish. while i don't doubt Louis Komjathys ability or sincerity, i have a sneaking suspicion there might be even more to some of it than is written in here.

i don't know whether the text was originally written by whoever first draw the picture, or the guy who found it and preserved it into the stela. but whoever it was knew their stuff, that much is evident from even these translations ... still i wonder since that is one helluva picture.

There was an stone steele in which this map was engraved, supposedly in the caves near the White Cloud monastery. In that PDF, there was a "preface" written by a Taoist, "Lui Ch'eng-yin, the Taoist Su-yun". He saw the painting hung at the White Cloud Monastery, and made a wood engraving that has been reprinted in many different books. In modern books, I've found this map in Mantak Chia's books and Yang Jwing-Ming's book (but they were scaled down and the hanzi were difficult to make out), and it was in the latter who pointed out what he thought were deliberately obfuscating mistakes. I forgot which book it was in and so I don't remember the specifics.

This map is essentially a map of the different energy channels and vessels within the human body, and more or less describes the basis of the Chinese version of Kundalinit / lightning path practices (called Goldan Dan).

It is my personal belief that this is the realm one constructs or projects into. Glenn Morris had described a guided meditation called "Damo's Cave" which has a similar structure, though vastly different in details. I thought Morris made it up until I met a Shaolinquan teacher who mentioned in passing a guided meditation he sometimes springs on his students, with a similar structure. (The structure starts at an ocean and climbing up hills, ascending to a mountain and entering a cave). Lastly, I've read of one of the initiation journey in Opening the Dragon Gate in which the subject of the book entered into one of the ascended realms by inducing a faux-death (though he may really have died for that period) under the watchful guidance of this three teachers. And having seen enough of how the supposedly symbolic imagery turns into actual images presented before the cultivator, I think this is both a symbolic map of how to get there and also the "keys" (as in vibratory signatures that makes sympathetic links work) to actually get to these inner realms.

To give an example, towards the bottom of the tu, you see waves and oceans. There are two people on water wheels. There is a structure that looks like a single gate where the water is flowing through. The inscription near there talks about "the wheels that reverses the flow of k'an (elemental water)". That whole bottom part relates the conservation of sexual energy (water, ocean, Venus) by "reversing" its flow (the wheels are turned by the two people to try to make it flow backwards). The water normally floods outwards. Past the gate, if you follow that path upwards, that is Kundalini path, either the spine or one of the vessels known as the "thrusting vessel".

Another fun one is the picture of the kid with the Big Dipper (Cowherder's Constellation, the "string of gold"). I don't understand everything there, but I do notice that connection from that area into the lower part of the Twelve-Story Pagoda (the larynx). The Pericardium that wraps around the heart hangs off of that. You don't open up the tightness in the chest by forcing open the heart so much as relaxing the pericardium, allowing it sink down from the inside of the base of the neck. If you notice mini temple on the spine path, it sits level with the heart area: right between the shoulder blade. When the pericardium is relaxed, that gate at the spine opens up to allow energy to flow out the arms. I wrote a bunch about it on my blog here when I accidentally twigged on it earlier this year (I was trying to better pushups).

I think it works even better if you can relate specific symbols from your own dreams to this map; for example, I've had lots of dreams where there were stairs spiraling upwards, and downwards and not quite making logical sense; in another one, I dreamt of being on a train where, as the train traveled over the rails, we started shifting from one realm to another, one was wet, one was fiery ...

My point with all of this is that it serves as a good guide if you go out and gather your own intelligence with your own senses. I've seen enough "scholarly" works on this to start recognizing when someone is speaking from an armchair.

Namaste

[Qaexl]

I finally managed to unlock that PDF Here are the hanzi for the main inscriptions:

Quote:

Originally Written by %2$s 我家耑種自家田 I am properly and attentively cultivating my own field � 内有靈苗活萬年 Inside there are numinous sprouts18 that live for ten thousand years. 花似黄金色不異 The flowers resemble yellow gold, their color not uncommon; 子如玉粒果皆圓 The seeds are like jade grain, their fruits perfectly round. 栽培全賴中宮土 Cultivation completely depends on the earth of the Central Palace; 灌溉須憑上谷泉 Irrigation necessarily relies on the spring in the Upper Valley. 功課一朝成大道 The practice is completed suddenly and I attain the great Tao – 逍遙陸地作蓬仙 I wander carefree19 over land and water as an immortal of P'eng-lai.20, 21 鐵牛畊地種金錢 The iron ox plows the field where golden coins are sown; 刻石兒童把貫串 Engraving the stone, the young lad holds a string of cash. 一粒粟中藏世界 A single grain of millet contains the entire world; 半升鐺内煮山川 Mountains and streams are decocted in a half-sheng cauldron. 白頭老子眉垂地 The eyebrows of white-headed Lao-tzu hang down to the earth, 碧眼胡僧手托天 And the blue-eyed foreign monk holds up the heavens. 若向此糸玄會得 Orient yourself towards the mysterious and it is realized – 此糸糸外更無糸 Outside of this mystery there is no other mystery. 復復連連歩歩週 Repeatedly, constantly, [the treadmill] is peddled in cycles;22 機關撥轉水東流 When the mechanism revolves, the water flows eastward. 萬丈深潭應見底 The water, ten-thousand fathoms deep, is seen straight to its bottom; 甘泉湧起南山頭 A sweet spring bubbles up, rising to the summit of Southern Mountain.23

[oak]

is there a way to see a list of all the articles in your hidden storehouse? something a little more controllable than random page.

to me the picture has been a sort of a confirmational tool that tells me that in fact what happens when "unfolding" through letting go of internal tension with the help of the presence of attention and perception, isn't wholly a personal matter, at least when it comes to the "big picture" stuff (which isn't really that surprising since the internal geometrical structure of human body is pretty much the same for everyone). that there are people who have done this before, and that their perception of things wasn't that different from mine. sure the iconography and concepts are more or less foreign to me and mostly more impenetrable than i'd like (for example there are many stories of the weaving maiden constellation, but what was circulating at the time i have no idea), but much of it is in a more or less universal language, like the spiral within the heart.

thanks for your insights, if you have any more you'd like to share, please do, as i have no doubt you are much more well-versed in the intricacies of taoist thought than i.

ps. are you aware of any other connotations for the character for coin 錢 beyond the obvious (wealth and such)
pps. how did you unlock the pdf? i thought it was password protected and had to write it by hand, which was actually a nice way to read through it with more attention.

[Qaexl]

oak said:

is there a way to see a list of all the articles in your hidden storehouse? something a little more controllable than random page.

Yes and no. There is a "special page" there that gives you that kind of index. However, I had been meaning to take that out. I had modified the wiki so that it displays the pages if you come in from a specific, small number of "entrances". OC is one of those entrances. You could try messing around with the URL and see what you get though.

The big caveat though is that I started this back in 2006. I've learned a lot more, yet I had not updated that wiki to match. There are lots of articles left there that are essentially BS by the virtue of my ignorance.

oak said:

to me the picture has been a sort of a confirmational tool that tells me that in fact what happens when "unfolding" through letting go of internal tension with the help of the presence of attention and perception, isn't wholly a personal matter, at least when it comes to the "big picture" stuff (which isn't really that surprising since the internal geometrical structure of human body is pretty much the same for everyone). that there are people who have done this before, and that their perception of things wasn't that different from mine. sure the iconography and concepts are more or less foreign to me and mostly more impenetrable than i'd like (for example there are many stories of the weaving maiden constellation, but what was circulating at the time i have no idea), but much of it is in a more or less universal language, like the spiral within the heart.

thanks for your insights, if you have any more you'd like to share, please do, as i have no doubt you are much more well-versed in the intricacies of taoist thought than i.

What I meant was that if you can relate the personal dream symbols to the keys on that map, and you know the cultivation formula, then you can access it pretty quickly.

oak said:

ps. are you aware of any other connotations for the character for coin 錢 beyond the obvious (wealth and such)

Sure. I've heard it said by one guy that "money is a crude form of (Five Elements) Metal" and that "nothing starts without Metal". He was talking about the price of his seminars to meet a Taoist master ... though his credibility is suspect (and the ones casting that doubt was from a different pai). I think there is still something there, just as fools and con artists may inspire Truths.

I find it significant not just that you are planting 種 "golden coins" 金錢, but that the ox that is doing planting is also iron 鐵. In other words, I think that line is talking about 金, as in Five Elements Metal.

You may also want to check out this tool I have put together specifically to pick apart the meanings of the Chinese ideographs: http://guwen.hiddenstorehouse.com. If you put 錢 in there, you get some information, but its biggest value is links to ChineseEtymology.org (where you can look at the older Seal Scripts and see how older scribes had interpreted that meaning), and someties to Zhongwen.com (which has a tree-diagram of words related by radical, but only for a fraction of the words). There is also a link off to manderintools -- which I should rename to "Common Usage". You can see the character used in the vernacular.

In the case of 錢, it is essentially 金 + 戔, which is to mean "metal" + "noise of tools". 戔 is used to refer to machinery -- i.e. industrial tools (China has had prototypical industrial base far earlier than the European countries, though they ossified towards the end of the Ming dynasty). The concept that currency -- "money", but different from the other characters about "money" using Crowerie shells -- is essentially "Elemental Metal" + "industrialized" is dead on, when you look at finance and capital in the modern world.

Another thought along that line is that in the I-Ching, the Well 井 and the Cauldron 鼎 are the only two man-made objects. Both directly relates to internal alchemy (丹 is found at the bottom of the well 井, and the interaction of Fire 離 and Water 坎 takes place with a Cauldron 鼎). However, in 内經圖, there are many artifacts. You have the plow that iron ox is plowing; you have those water wheels spinning in reverse; there are gates and palaces ...

oak said:

pps. how did you unlock the pdf? i thought it was password protected and had to write it by hand, which was actually a nice way to read through it with more attention.

PDFs have two passwords used for encrypting it. There is something called the "Owner's" password and the "User's" password. The "Owner's" password is encrypted with the "User's" password. With a PDF that has restrictions but not User's password, the Owner's key is stored in plain text, so it is relatively easy to open up. If it weren't easy, you wouldn't be able to read the PDF. There are tons of programs out there that charges you money for the privilege of stripping out the restrictions. I couldn't find a free Linux one, so I ended up using one that gave me unlimited access for free on a 15 day trial ... and I stripped the restrictions on a number of other PDFs I had in my library. I kept both restricted and unlocked versions though since I want to use the restricted version as a sort of authoritative source I can check the stripped version against.

-Qaexl

[Qaexl]

Ah, here's something interesting:

半升鐺内煮山川 Mountains and streams are decocted in a half-sheng cauldron.

Doesn't capture the full flavor of the original text.

半升 - Footnotes say this is a measurement

鐺 - is translated as a cauldron, but it is not the same as a 薡 (from the I-Ching). A 薡 refers to a sacrificial cauldron with three legs. The 鐺 looks just like the picture in the picture -- a shallow frying pan of sorts. According to Chinese Etymology:

"a kind of wine heater / a cauldron-like vessel with legs / a pan for frying / a shallow pot"

内 - Means inner. Grammatically, you could interpret the above phrasing as 半升鐺内 to mean, "within a half-sheng wine heater"

煮 - was translated as "decocted", but it is commonly used to mean cook

The definition of "wine heater" sounds interesting though when you consider the "mountains and streams" 山川 to probably mean the watery 精 energy that flowed back down after being pumped up into the "mountains". So "decocted", that is using heat to reduce and concentrate a liquid. That pan in the picture is on fire, after all. This was something I had half-assed tried a while back, but I think I will give it another go.

-Qaexl

[oak]

Qaexl said:

What I meant was that if you can relate the personal dream symbols to the keys on that map, and you know the cultivation formula, then you can access it pretty quickly.

the problem i have with that is i can't remember a single dream i can relate to the iconography of the picture (well i saw a blue eyed monk once who showed me we all literally are universes), i rarely remember my dreams and my approach to things internal isn't really visual. for me the picture is a literal "map" of our internal structure as i perceive it. for example the "The blue eyed foreign monk holding up the heavens" is "something" holding up my palate, there is no monk, but the image fits the perception (speaking about structural perception here, not visual perception).

haven't had a handle on the "directions" it gives before, so thanks for all the info, haven't had time to experiment lately, but definitely will try to find out how i can put it to use sometime.

what do you mean with cultivation formula btw?

ps. never noticed this before but (at least some of) the hanzi characters look kind of like little pictures of the thing they represent, pretty cool

[Twilight Siren]

Wow! I've never seen this before. I'm bookmarking this page for future reference.

Thanks.

[Qaexl]

Notes:

(0) This was posted in the Nei Jing Tu thread for a reason.

(1) Vagus nerve, or the parasymathetic outflow does not actually go through the spinal column (though the sacral nerves do).

(2) Notice how the Vagus nerves connect to many of the organs, creating intersections for [thread=10470]chakra[/thread]. Or the different wheels in Nei Jing Tu

(3) This would be the Central Channel I mentioned in [thread=10469]Awakening a Stable K[/thread]. This central channel appears in a number of cultivation methods the world over. It is significant it doesn't exactly follow the spinal column all the way up.

(4) High Performance Mind mentions how to relax the body by activating the parasympathetic nervous system. One method is to make the exhales longer than the inhales. It also has a good side effect of easing you into alpha and theta.

-Qaexl

[Qaexl]

Quote:

Originally Written by %2$s Question: What do you mean by the male element of metal with the female element of wood? Answer: The male element of metal is the sun and the female element of wood is the moon. After a man has fallen into the postnatal state (i.e. has been born), he loses the power of concentration; this is why his sun and moon do not unite. If he understands the profound meaning of their union and concentrates on the cavity of the dragon (lung kung below the navel) until they both unite, true vitality will manifest of itself. The cavity of the dragon is (the lower tan t'ien under the navel) which is the seat of the element of water and contains the original vital force. The heart is the seat of the element of fire and contains the original spirit. The method consists of concentrating on the lower abdomen under the navel thereby directing the element of fire in spirit down to the northern sea (the lower tan t'ien) wherein the element of water, being scorched, will evaporate and become steam that soars up. The immersion of fire in water causes their 'copulation' and the resultant condition is called 'fire and water in stable equilibrium' (shui huo chi chi). If the outer sun and moon do not mingle their lights the inner water and fire do not 'copulate' and prenatal true vitality cannot manifest. If they are left to themselves to follow their postnatal course the element of fire will remain dry and that of water will continue wet, with the former soaring up and the latter going down, both running in opposite directions. If water is not scorched by fire it will not evaporate to become steam that soars up. This is the unstable state of water and fire as shown as shown by the story of the cowherd and weaving maiden in the Nei Ching. (1) Fire is hot and soars up; it is symbolised by the maiden who weaves hard day and night, is likened to the heart (the seat of fire) which is impermanent, refuses to relinquish worldly attachments and is subject to the endless round of birth and death. Water is wet and flows down; it is symbolised by the cowherd tilling the soil without respite, who stands for vitality that scatters easily; when the latter is exhausted he will have no time even to turn his head (to think of himself). Taoist alchemy uses the (planetary) signs in heaven to teach the method of preparing the elixir of immortality with analogies which are very profound and are not meant to deceive (and harm) others. Hsu Ching Yang said: "If the macrocosmic elixir of immortality is not produced by intermingling the lights of the sun and moon, and the union of heaven with earth, what can make it?" This is the wonderful union of the elements of metal and wood. (1) According to Chinese mythology, to the east of the heavenly river lived a maiden who worked hard to weave heavenly robes. The heavenly king took pity on her loneliness and allowed her to marry a cowherd living to the west of the river. After being married, she stopped working and the king was angry and ordered her to return to the east, permitting her to cross the river to meet her husband only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month. This story shows the unstable states of the female element of water and the male element of fire which causes human sufferings.

[Qaexl]

Fair warning: ignore my blathering and attempts to decode the text.

There's already a Master Key.

"我家耑種自家田 I am properly and attentively cultivating my own field" ... meaning, if I'm going around telling people about their practice, I'm already lost in the woods.

-Qaexl

[Shadow-Gnostikoi]

Now THAT'S interesting. I think I've neglected my Vipassana too much lately...