"Parcere subjectis and debellare superbos "
In classical Taoism, it is often referred to the "One", to this return recommended in Chapter 40 of the Dao De Jing .
The return to the Oneness requires a specific work that is diversified and falsely progressive.
We can however identify three main aspects to the various progressions on the Way : a work on oneself, on the world and on the mystery of Heaven.
This route between Heaven and Earth is specificity of Taoism.
This return to the Oneness demands to dissect our being, our life, our ways and our illusions, but also to transmute this crude into a light this is a Global Alchemy.
The training on the Way requires to realize two "Alchemies":
- From the inside to the outside
- Another from the outside inwards
Let's talk about what we know well, in the different schools of spiritual development, and which is the most practiced: the work from the inside to the outside.
By introspection, by research on ourselves, we develop a better understanding of ourselves.
This knowledge allows us to work on the different components that we understood and we will develop all the aspects that make us human, to enable ourselves to bring out the "Zhen Ren 真人" the true human being , the achieved human being.
The danger of this step is to forget the purpose of all this, to forget the world, the others...
This training is intended to enable us to better integrate ourselves into the world, to live better with others... Unless we are in a practice of retreat from the world (which is not the case of our school) .
Again, this part of Way is to go from inside, from the work on ourselves, to outside , to the world and others.
The trap is that in the development of oneself, our we allow our ego to "explode" , our individuality looks at the world with contempt, we feel superior... We let a part of the Way die, we stop at the point of contact with the world, on the edge of our perceptions.
It is true that the work on oneself enables us to better know ourselves, to function better in the world, to have a smoother and easier life .
Looking those who remain in the mundane, it is sometimes easy to criticize and judge: it is the opposite of what dictates the Practice.
This aspect of the Way asks us to exude the qualities of the Practice into the world, with the others, to illuminate our world, to make it more enjoyable.
It is therefore not a development from the inside towards the ego, but from oneself towards the world, from inside to outside: it is the path of the internal alchemy, the work of resolving my worries with myself to get to resolve my frustrations with others.
Thus, internal alchemy is a path that takes us out of our ego so that our refined individuality can lead by example in the world.
The techniques originate from the center of the body to rise in the middle of our being and go out towards the world: the test is not on ourselves but on our relationship to the world.
The concern is not really the practice time spent foolishly sitting on one's "foundations", but more how one's breath allows better interaction with one's neighbors .
The breath is energy, an energy that is required for me to accept different opinions, but breath is also linked to emotions, emotions that need to be stable to accommodate the stupidity of the uneducated.
So it's really a work from the inside to the outside.
But there is another way , the other door.
Neglected and distorted , often secret , the external Taoist alchemy allows you to change yourself from the outside towards the inside.
By manipulations and transformations taking place before our eyes, by the "miracles" that are carried out in clusters, through the time spent watching the world change and transform, we can radically change what was "me".
The wonders of the external alchemy have several aspects :
- The elixirs
- the Research of Jing
- the "Kitchen"
- the Taoist medicine
- the Contemplation
- the Dissolution
But then, if sometimes you can hide your internal practice, filtering with cunning our fattest lies, the external practice does not lie: it does not work !
Indeed, by following the instructions, by indulging in a healthy dose of attention, by doing what we were told: it works, the result is before our eyes, realized.
Again, when we try the first times, having ignored many instructions, them being misunderstood or being too simple for us, or just not listened to sometimes, we are facing an overwhelming and intractable reality, a clear and real evidence, a certainty rooted in materiality: "Well, it does not work! "
Whatever may be the most spectacular beliefs that we can have on our evolution, whatever the majestic myths that we have built on on the greatness of our soul: the result is not there.
It is the strength of the external route, it brings us back to reality.
That this path is the main one or a support to the internal one, the two aspects of the practice help us not to succumb to the spiritual materialism and to keep our heads out of places where it should not be .
These two revealed aspects of the Way give us a full practice that save us from grandiose aspirations and obscene stupidity: we can not succumb to mediocrity with such safeguards.
What joy to know that we are forced to contemplate our incompetence to go towards a conscious sublimation: two doors to balance our search .
