![\"Tien-Di-Ren\"](\"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Tien-Di-Ren-1-300x136.jpg\")
The fundamental triad of Chinese philosophy is Heaven, Earth, & Humankind.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at what these terms mean as a whole and individually, and how they relate to meditation & qi-cultivation.<\/p>\nThe fundamental triad of Chinese philosophy is Heaven, Earth, & Humankind.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at what these terms mean as a whole and individually, and how they relate to meditation & qi-cultivation.<\/p>\n
Heaven (ti\u0101n, \u5929) in the manifest world is the wide-open sky, but in Chinese philosophy it refers to pure yang \u2013 the creative source.\u00a0 Pure motivating light.\u00a0 It\u2019s not some special place where believers go but rather is the original impetus of all manifestation.\u00a0 It relates to spirit\/awareness.<\/p>\n
Earth (d\u00ec, \u5730) in the manifest world is the solid ground beneath our feet, but in Chinese philosophy it refers to pure yin \u2013 a wide-open field.\u00a0 Earth receives the motivating activity of Heaven, enabling it to manifest.\u00a0 While it relates to material like the planetary earth or our body, the meaning is more like the mother that receives a seed from father and nurtures it to life.<\/p>\n
Humankind (r\u00e9n, \u4eba) \u2013 or what I prefer to translate more broadly as \u201csentient beings\u201d \u2013 is the fruit of the union of Heaven & Earth.\u00a0 While in the manifest world Heaven is above and Earth is below, the understanding in Chinese philosophy is that first Heaven initiates, then Earth nurtures, then life emerges forth.<\/p>\n
Collectively, Tian-Di-Ren represent the vertical structure of the cosmos.\u00a0 But structure isn\u2019t really the correct word, because the Chinese view of the cosmos is not material but energetic.\u00a0 A more appropriate word would be process \u2013 the vertical process of how things come into being.<\/p>\n
Heaven acts in the field of Earth, then Earth processes it and gives birth to some resultant thing.\u00a0 All life springs up from the Earth below, it doesn\u2019t just fall from Heaven.\u00a0 Even birds nest on the Earth.\u00a0 But just as mother must be fertilized by father, the Chinese understand this springing up of life as an upward bounce from the descending qi of Heaven.\u00a0 (Hence the lines of the Zhou Yi Jing start at the bottom and then rise upward).<\/p>\n
In Laozi\u2019s meditation & qi-cultivation, we model our practice on Dao.\u00a0 As Laozi says, \u201cthe motion of Dao is return\u201d.\u00a0 So a primary aspect of Daoist cultivation is returning human beings to pure yang.\u00a0 Shifting from the generative to the returning direction is called neidan or internal alchemy.<\/p>\n
To embody the returning motion of Dao, we first align ourselves with the vertical axis of Heaven & Earth \u2013 in sitting, standing, and\/or moving forms.\u00a0 Then we become empty like Earth and let the qi drop all the way down.\u00a0 \u201cEmpty the heart-mind and fill the belly.\u201d\u00a0 With regular practice over a period of time, qi will eventually stir in the lower dantian and start to rise on its own.\u00a0 This is the reverse bounce.\u00a0 According to neidan, a true human is one who not only lives as a result of Heaven acting upon Earth, but who can reverse the generative process of Heaven & Earth \u2013 drop the qi all the way down and bounce back to Heaven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The fundamental triad of Chinese philosophy is Heaven, Earth, & Humankind.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at what these terms mean as a whole and individually, and how they relate to meditation & qi-cultivation. Heaven (ti\u0101n, \u5929) in the manifest world is the wide-open sky, but in Chinese philosophy it refers to pure yang \u2013 the creative source.\u00a0 … Continue reading “Heaven, Earth, & Humankind”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}