Wednesday, February 6, 2019

What is the point of meditation? The paradox of the Boundless Body

Describe the Fa Shen body?  I don't understand.  Boundless as in un-bound from what?  Using the term body implies a form... so how can it be boundless?
 
I still don't see the use in this really.  It's all magical and fantastic and everything, but what real purpose does this achievement lead one to?  Who has attained this Fa Shen body?  Where did they go?  What did they do?  Why?  What for?
 
In the book Taoist Yoga - in the beginning it states that the aim is to overcome mortality... now is that meant to transcend mortality?  As in establish a way to express oneself outside of and beyond the physical form?  Or is it meant to actual just live for a very long time as is described in other taoist texts and legends... 
"transformed immortal is able to resurrect his physical body at death and ascend - love is the guiding force, terrestial immortal survives for hundreds of years and has left behind all human characteristics, perfect virtue is the guiding force.  Celestial immortal survives for thousands of years, and has a physical body totally spiritualized, free of the limits of space and time, Tao is the guiding force. "   http://www.thegreattao.com/html/taobooks.html
 
...They all eventually physically die, or ascend to heavenly realms...
 
So what does any of that have to do with making a spiritual copy of oneself?

yes there are all good questions yet "wisdom" or meditation is based on the idea that our thinking is not our true Self. So let's quote the book again:

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For this golden light manifests in front of you while your essential body (fa shen) in the great emptiness gradually comes closer to it. When the light of this body joins and mingles with the golden light (in front of you) you will realise your essential body which will then enter your physical body; the latter will absorb that spiritual body and in three years’ time will be sublimated into pure vitality. This is the manifestation of positive spirit (yang shen) which will take form when it gathers in one place or will become pure vitality when it scatters to fill the great emptiness which will be its boundless body.

So what we experience here is actually a spacetime transformation. This light being absorbed is actually energy from the future while the light we experience as our "waking" reality is energy from the past. And so our essential body is this boundless body that is pure Qi or pure primordial qi (Yuan Qi). So we can call this the 5th dimension that is beyond the future and the past - as the light of "no light" - or also the yuan shen.
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the wondrous light of (essential) nature which is symbolised by a circle which Confucius called virtuous perfection (jen) ; the Book of Change calls it the ultimateless (wu chi), the Buddha perfect knowledge (yuan ming) and the Taoists the elixir of immortality or spiritual light; which all point to the prenatal One True Vitality.
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Body, Essential (fa shen)

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