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Old 01-15-2016, 11:51 AM   #37
JW
 
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Re: How do i know when i can feel KI?

Quote:
Carsten Möllering wrote: View Post
As far as I know the Daoist understanding - which I think is the foundation of Ueshiba's thinking and practice - knows three bodies of man: physical body - jing, energy body - qi/ki and spiritual body - shen/shin.
Jing[精]/Qi[氣]/Shen[神] are called the "three treasures[三寶]". (Of course not to be confused with Jin[勁]/Qi[氣]/Yi[意]!) I know they figure prominently in some ways of thinking. But Carsten, are there specific quotes or references in Ueshiba's writings that make you think he thought in these terms?

My understanding is that the core of Chinese philosophy, shared by everything including acupuncture, martial arts, feng shui, and traditional government, is yin/yang theory. However, concepts like the three treasures are not part of that core but rather represent some later elaboration. Meaning they are the specific teachings of certain schools of thought. The singular term "Daoism" gets applied post-hoc to this diversity of thought and muddies my understanding.

My evidence: the oldest texts (including oracle bones) show the idea of yin/yang theory. The Yi Jing [易經] for example does not mention jing/qi/shen, but its trigrams directly represent cycles of change using yin/yang terminology. Later, texts like the Dao De Jing were composed. Still, there are no jing/qi/shen treasures. (In fact the term 三寶 is actually used, to refer to something totally different! So, jing/qi/shen must not have been a popular idea at that time...) However, the concept of qi has started to emerge by this time-- though a different, archaic character [炁] was used (also? instead? I don't know). Only in even later texts do people talk about jing/qi/shen. So, is this idea really as fundamental as many suggest?

The things Ueshiba talked about, like ichirei-shikon-sangen-hachiriki, kotodama, the three worlds becoming one, ame no ukihashi, kon/paku[魂/魄] interaction, combination of love and light, attraction force, and most of all, misogi, don't to me sound obviously like the three treasures. Obviously the number 3 is there but the three treasures as you have explained before are really specific in that one produces the other. In fact, Ueshiba's Japanese Omoto point of view clearly considers 神 to be something that comes from the spiritual world, not something generated by the body, right? It just seems pretty different. And misogi, which seems to me to be Ueshiba's main schema for how the process of aikido works, seems to be more a removal of impurities that impair/impede/obstruct, rather than a transmuting of essence to spirit. Would love to read your take on this.
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