Carl Jung and esoteric practices

Carl Jung showed much interest in Eastern practices with psychological overtones. Unlike some new age folks who consider following an esoteric path as their aim, Jung was a scientific man by nature, he almost never stepped beyond his own inner experience as psyche reality rather than a goal to pursue. Like when he talked about his own out-of-body (OBE) experience after an accident, it was in descriptive terms as if reporting a case of special psyche experience. Modern medical practice will call this near-death experience. And the Dalai Lama also put it this way when he said he practiced dying a few times a day. The Dalai Lama, like Carl Jung, carefully differentiate two different perspectives. And both seem to believe the metaphysical side needs with a belief system (religious or otherwise), and both seem to think that a separate analysis will not weaken such belief systems.

Carl Jung said he was not a practitioner of Taoist yoga nor did he advocate westerners to fall wholesale into this esoteric practice (actually he warned against it!). But he did venture into some form of deep meditations himself. It is interesting to note that Jung wrote the The Seven Sermons to the Dead (a text of revelations from god or Jung's archetype, whichever way you like to look at it). He distributed copies to his close friends, which action he regretted later. Should he continued with his revelation path, he might have pursue a more religious career.

The recent publication of his Red Book added some lights as well as controversy to the issue of Jung's metaphysical orientation. Some people say he was a scientist and some say he was a Gnostic (or even a leader of a secret religious cult!). His Red Book documented his venture into his own unconscious - not only personal unconscious but also collective unconscious - the archetypes as he called it). That was the time when he feared that he had a coming schizophrenic onset. Perhaps his act of writing his inner self saved him from this downfall, nobody knows. It is interesting to note that he professed in his biography that, as a scientist, he wanted to take this (golden) opportunity to study the unconscious firsthand, using himself as the subject! Because of its schizo-like contents, his heirs refused to publish it not until recently when his granddaughter decided to publish - to make the record straight, so to speak.

In classic Taoist yoga practice, during deep meditation, a practitioner should just go through his own unconscious and should remind himself that these are mere fantasies that could harm the practitioner. And the practitioner should proceed until Tao is find - where consciousness and unconscious will be integrated into a higher level of consciousness, and final enlightenment comes. Of course, there are some Taoist practices with the objective of finding one's own god (as guided or suggested by his master) in the process. And out of meditation, these god that they found will protect them. But that will be another story.

Anyway, Jung was interested in things that classic Taoists would try to avoid. And in Taoist terminology, Jung was not yet enlightened. To this end, as explained above, Jung of course held different views!

Some notes on the development of Taoist yoga in China

Recently I came across a book called 大道行, a biography of Taoist master Wang Liping (王力平) of Dragon Gate tradition (龍門派 same tradition as Master Liu Huayang, author of Hui Ming Jing), and claimed to be its 18th Patriarch. The book was published in China in 1990 and translated into English by Thomas Cleary in 1998 as "Opening the Dragon Gate: The Making of a Modern Taoist Wizard". Both English and Chinese versions can be read from the internet (copyright status unknown).

The book was written when chi-kung, with religious overtone, was flourishing in mainland China. The situation was like this, whereas religions were rigidly controlled and organized in China (then and now), but chi-kung as health practice was loosely watched over by the authority.

The very first chapter of the book reviewed clearly that this was not meant to be a "factual" biography of the Master (similarly, the Bible is not a "factual" biography of Jesus). The finding and enrolling of young Wang into the practice (and eventually became its leader) was everything mystical. Young Wang at age 13, a normal student from a poor family, was discovered by three elders who, according to the book, used 推背图 (Tui Bei Tu, Figuring the Backbone), and based on their tradition, figured out the whereabout of the coming new leader of their religious tradition.

A couple of mystical moves can be seen here. Firstly, the finding of a new leader as a young and yet-uninitiated boy was taken from the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism with the objective of give the whole process an mystical touch.

Secondly, the finding was motivated by the famous prophecy book Figuring the Backbone. This is a Chinese prophecy book from the 7th century Tang dynasty. The book is known for predicting the future of China, and is written by Li Chun-feng (李淳風) and Yuan Tian-gang (袁天罡). It has been compared to the works of famous western prophet Nostradamus. The intention is clear. The new leader was important enough to be included into the prophecy book of the future of China! The new leader must thus be a great man.

Thirdly, more technical, the age was below fifteen. According to the classics, young man before fifteen (i.e. before puberty) can be speedily trained to the highest enlightened level. Major Taoist leaders became enlightened usually at middle-age when after experiencing much of life's frustration (a note here: not today where many young people get their fair share of lives' frustration earlier on, but that will be another story). That means a leader trained before 15 must have great technical skills!

Therefore, the original intention was to make the book the "bible of Dragon Gate tradition". Needless to say, even without any political hindrance, other Taoists inside the tradition would likely to have different wishes.

As fate has decided. Another Buddhist/Taoist belief system, the more famous Falungong (法輪功) was cracked down by the authority in 1999， with much killing, torturing and jailing. The leader of Falungong fled to the US before the crackdown, and leaders of similar chi-kung-sects, including Master Wang, started playing a very low profile.

With an enemy to fight against, Falungong established operations worldwide. On the other hand our Master Wang had basically become a chi-kung master with occasional invitations from authority controlled Taoist organization as a show of respect. Sometimes we can read from the press the Master performed miraculous feats like use chi to attract a group of squirrels, cure diseases where western medical practice failed (including treating the Russian president!), and able to train a group of novice Germans to see mandala just a couple of days (!!!) using the method mentioned in the Secret of the Golden Flower. And I also came across a website by a lady student of the Master running elementary chi-kung courses in an European city.

Fate does count, even when one is a leading Taoist master who was said being able to look into the future.

A short theory of the practice

Before we move on to analyze Hui Ming Jing (for practice purpose this text is more important), let us look at a summary of the theory as viewed from Taoist perspective (needless to say my own interpretation only). Similar theory appeared in both texts. My view is that one does not necessarily have to "buy into" this theory before one can get benefits from this practice, I mean for the modern man who looks for physical and mental health, with an option open to himself to develop his spirituality or religious belief as defined by birth or through free choice. With this in mind, I shall proceed with the theory.

Before one is born, chi is transmitted from the mother to the embryo who undergoes internal chi-breathing rather than external breathing. Once a baby is born, external breathing begins and there is a split of the self into consciousness (識神/魄) which stays at one's heart, and unconscious (元神/魂) which stays at between one's eye-brows. When a person is awake, he is being controlled by consciousness and attached to all kinds of pain and joyful events that shorten his life. When a person is asleep, his unconscious rules and he can travel to far away places in seconds. When one dies, his unconscious will leave his body and being dispersed (or reincarnate into different being as different Taoists have different belief systems). One way of salvation is that Taoist mediation or yoga can energize the unconscious so that it join itself with consciousness, the higher consciousness thus created is the self that can leave the body during meditative practice (out-of-body experience) and can also be immortal upon the depth of the person.

The practical benefit is that in order that the unconscious can be energized, firstly the mind must be controlled to a significant degree of calmness (resulting, for one thing, in a high EQ, besides the fact that a more relaxed body and mind is conducive to good physical and mental health), and secondly the body itself must be well balanced (good alignment and with blockages cleared) and full body well tuned (like，for example, "muscle as one" (肌肉如一).

The most important practical point is that this kind of practice (together with practices like tai-chi chi-kung) are most useful for people at middle-aged and above and people recovering from serious illness. For these people, exercises like jogging or swimming could not be a choice, and even if, they can no longer be as balanced and as effective.

The success and failure of internal gazing

The next few chapters deals with success and failure of internal gaze. Sleepy mind everybody knows being a failure. According to the text, the worse situation is fleeting mind in which one will fantasize into ghostly world, again this caution by the text is well warranted, as modern psychiatric studies inform us that those with latent psychological problems might have their problems brought to the surface by a fantasizing mind without external stimulation, as in deep meditation. Care has to be taken.

Success here deals with signs for progress with Taoist meditation (or Taoist yoga). And Taoist writers were very proud of themselves of having definite signs for progress in their practice. Light (bright white light) is usually taken as sign-post for progress (more shall be dealt with in Hui Ming Ying). My personal view is that in actual practice we should take easy with these sign-posts and not to fixate our mind too much into them. I shall discuss these issues when they arise later.

Lastly in Chapter 7, the text mentioned in a passing manner that the feeling of internal gaze should be carried over to daily life. Usually this kind of attitude is more prevalent in Zen meditation, in which the meditative state (or a reduced form of which) shall be carried over to daily activities such as walking, doing daily chores, sitting and resting. For Zen practitioners, it is very important to continue the Zen experience into daily life (as a kind of sign-post for progress actually), where Taoist practitioners (in the past) were more eager to reach the higher level of Immortality quickly.

Modern man certainly likes to carry the Zen experience to his daily life - when nowadays high EQ is much praised. Hence, as a living practice, there are indeed much to be learned from Zen practice.

Co-ordinate internal gaze with breathing

Chapter 4 of the secret of the golden flower deals with co-ordination of internal gaze with breathing. The objective of which is to fight against sleepy mind (昏沉) and fleeting mind (散亂). Again the focus is on the control of a restless mind. The mind is to "listen" (聼) with one's internal ear. This "listen" is an important in practicing zhan zhuang (站樁) and tai-chi. In the stationary form, a practitioner has to listen to the flow of chi, so that, for example, the effect of "muscle as one"（肌肉如一) can be felt in the stationary form, and "listen to jing" (聼勁) in tai-chi pushing hands. The reason why the word Listen is used instead of Feel (actually it is more feel than listen with one's ears!) is that the mind has to be super-quiet when one what to achieve the desired effect, and a super-quiet situation is related to the action of listening.

In the practice of meditation, listening is important not only in controlling one's restless mind (as mentioned in the secret of the golden flower) but also important in chi-generation as shall be discussed in Hui Ming Jing later in this blog.

Internal Gaze to establish the centre line

Internal gaze to establish the centre line forms chapter three of the secret of the golden flower. After establishing the energized third eye, the practitioner should direct his gaze inward with the objective of calming one's restless mind. The first physical action to do is obvious: close one's (physical) eyes. The text suggests half closing one's eyes to the point of just able to see one's nose tip. My suggestion is that it all depends on the mental condition of the practitioner. For those who are calm enough, they can completely close their eyes for best results. For those who are easy to wonder into fantasy or easy to fall asleep, half-closing or 1/4 closing would be recommended. Needless to say, for those who are not psychological stable or can get into hallucination, they should avoid deep meditative practice altogether, for safety reason.

The second question is: gaze at what? The text is silent on this issue. A possible reason is that under different stage, a practitioner should gaze at different part of his body. In this initial stage, one should gaze at the dantian (丹田) [or called lower dantian (下丹田)]. Again, like the third eye, the dantian is not a physical element but an aperture (竅) established by subtle energy (i.e. energized). I shall leave it here, a detail discussion of the energizing process is to come during the analysis of the other text, Hui Ming Jing.

Chapter 2 of the text also talked about relation between the unconscious (or collective unconscious) 元神 and consciousness 識神. I found the analysis by Carl Jung both profound and in-depth. Interested readers should directly consult his commentary in the book "The secret of the Golden Flower" (the article also appeared in Jung's "Psychology of Eastern Religion", there, among other subjects, Jung also discussed the psychology of I-Ching).

One final point, gazing towards one's dandian also implies forming an imaginary energized (chi) centre line joining the third eye and the dantain (the 2 main chi-aperture). And the strength of which is important for subsequent meditative practice as well as for physical health (which belongs to and has to be discussed under the topic of "Tai-chi chi-kung" separately).

Why does one practice Taoist meditation?

For the modern man, in other words for the purpose of interpreting Taoist meditation as a living practice, there are two major objectives for practicing: firstly, for physical health and secondly for mental health. In terms of benefits to a practitioner, we can therefore classify Taoist meditation under mind body exercise, like tai-chi, yoga and pilates. In terms of similarity, we can classify tai-chi, Taoist meditation, Zen meditation, and various kinds of chi kung together as mind-body exercises of Chinese origin.

In the secret of the Golden Flower, the mental or spiritual benefits have been spelled out, whereas in Hui Ming Jing, the physical benefits are also emphasized. No matter what is being said in which, the two texts can be viewed as complementary to each other rather than offering different practices.

In both texts, a high spiritual objective was also spelled out. It involves a major over-haul of one's personality as discussed in Carl Jung's commentary to the texts. It will therefore only be relevant to people who are determined to seek the highest achievement in Eastern religious practice, those people, most likely will enter a monastery and learn the practice there instead of seeking inspiration from the texts and people who claim to understand the practice but never attend the level himself!

Putting things into perspective, the relevant question is "Isn't tai-chi (and highly effective chi-kung practice like Zhan Zhuang) good enough a mind-body exercise?" Stay tuned....

Third eye

The First chapter of the secret of the golden flower explained in detail the practice of opening the third eye. The third eye is located around the position between the the eye-brows. It is however, not a physical concern, not on the surface nor located physically inside. The third eye is an aperture (竅) opens only when a particular meditative state of mind is active. Psychologically, according to the text, requires, as a special technique, faith (誠).

If it sounds mythical, it is actually not. For the text spelled out another special technique, 3-points at the tip of a triangle. The 2 points at the base represent the eyes whereas the third point represents the third eye.

How to establish the third eye by faith? First is a mental state between sleep (when the unconscious rules) and wake-up (when consciousness rules). And send it is established through the balancing subtle energy of the two physical eyes). The third eye, being non-physical seems to have no use, but its useful is established through subtle energy establishing its existence. And after its existence is being established, in subsequent practice sequence, it (representing "the essence of human nature - 元神)acts as the control centre of the whole meditative practice.

In Chapter 11 of Dao De Jing, there is an example of powerful use of "nothingness" that is established by physical elements: 三十輻，共一轂，當其無，有車之用, thirty spokes establish the centre hub, it does not exist (as a physical element), but make in a wagon.

My review of the book in Amazon.com

The main text of this book "Secret of Gold Flower" deals with both an age old meditative practice and a supportive theory in the Taoist tradition. Carl Jung's commentary basically dealt only with theory part and interpreted as similar in concepts to his individuation process (the development of the self as similar to development of the golden flower). It adds credibility to both sides: Taoist practice gained western academic respectability whereas Jung's concepts of collective unconscious and archetype gained supportive evidence from an old high-culture. It is interesting to note that whereas Wilhelm was a Taoist practitioner who had brought himself full-scale into Taoist yoga, Jung on the other hand advised against western people taking up such practice!

On the practice side, the choice of texts is excellent: "Secret of Golder Flower" deals with the leading role of "human nature" (collective unconscious)in Taoist meditation with full supportive theory, whereas "Hui Ming Jing" deals with the procedural details of the practice itself (a combination of Taoist and Buddhist practice, the author himself a Buddhist monk of Zen tradition). Though an English translation might not be able to present and differentiate finer points that can only be understood if one can read the Chinese language, one benefit is that a translation can do away with some unnecessary mystical elements (for example in the book symbols from I-Ching are replaced by alphabets)that often times leads would-be practitioners into unnecessary maze. Though I have to complain that more of the Hui Ming Jing had not been translated (included) for a more complete manual for practice reference.

For those who are interested in the texts as a living practice, do not miss Wilhelm's excellent summary on the practice of Hui Ming Jing quoted by his wife in her Forward. For those who seek for historical similarity between this practice and similar western practice (now for all intend and purposes is extinct), do not miss Wilhelm's "Discussion of the Text" concerning past persecution in China towards some serious practitioners due to their (sometimes unavoidable - guess why!) linkage with political intrigues and peasant uprisings. In comparison, similar persecutions in the West had been more religious in nature.

On the psychological commentary, Jung is as usual, profound in his analysis. More of his analysis towards other Eastern text can be found in his Psychology of Eastern Religion (a collections of his articles on the subject matter - also highly recommended).