Entering the Tao: Master Ni's Guidance for Self-Cultivation

by Hua-Ching Ni

Overview

Master Hua-Ching Ni uses straightforward language and personal experiences, as well as traditional stories and teachings of the ancient masters, to impart the wisdom of Taoism, the Integral Way. His teachings promote a simple, natural, healthy, and happy way of life that lays the foundation for spiritual self-cultivation.

Master Ni emphasizes that it is important first to establish a good understanding of basic spiritual principles and then begin to realize this wisdom in daily life by adopting practices and attitudes that help to conserve, nourish, and refine the subtle energy. Among the topics he discusses in short, accessible passages are:

   • Basic spiritual self-protection
   • Self-reliance
   • Emotional balance
   • Do's and don'ts for a healthy, natural lifestyle
   • Sleeping and dreaming
   • Diet
   • Love, sex and marriage
   • Meditations and invocations from the Taoist tradition

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780834823969
Publisher:	Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Publication date:	04/22/1997
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	399 KB

About the Author

Hua-Ching Ni, an acknowledged master of all aspects of Taoist arts and philosophy, has lived and taught in the United States since 1976. He is the author of more than forty-five books on Chinese philosophy, traditional healing, the I Ching, meditation, and related subjects.

Read an Excerpt

Treasure the Tao

I
would like to share some very useful advice for your personal cultivation.
Taoist self-cultivation is a mental discipline in which every single thought must respond only to Tao, the oneness of the universe. Do ordinary people's thoughts respond to Tao? No, because ordinary people only think about the trivialities of daily life, and then wonder why they are troubled and unhappy.
Will they ever find happiness this way? No, for there is no end to troubles in the human sphere. Even in meditation, if you review all your activities and troubles you will just keep making them recur. What is the method to achieve lasting peace and harmony in life? You must work persistently to reach the spiritual level, even if you have no experience of its existence.

Tao is the potency of the universe. It includes all Gods, all deities, all divine beings, all spirits, and all souls. This means that all things have Tao as their deep root. Anyone who embraces Tao also embraces the potency of the
Universe. To embrace Tao is to become Tao, and nothing can be beyond you,
nothing can occupy you.

In the sphere of life, individuals may die and transform into other things, but
Tao does not change, because it is the change. That which does not change into something else can only be the absolute Tao. Tao is the root of everything, but everything is not Tao. To be formed, limited, manifested, and definable is to be something; to be not limited, defined or formed is Tao.

To use your good mind to respond to trouble is a waste. It is true that the achieved ones know that nothing is beyond Tao, including the trivialities of daily life. However, they never regret anything and they also never really become attached to anything either.

So do not lose yourself in the details of life. There will always be some things in your life you do or do not like, but they are only a small aspect of your life. Life is whole; it is only by attaching yourself to the pieces that you become narrow, shallow, and partial. Do not let your life be cut into pieces by worldly attractions. Do not live for such things and you will stop segmenting yourselves.

A
person of Tao is a person of wholeness. He or she embraces the wholeness of
Tao, not an image of God, not one single doctrine of any spiritual path, not life, not death, not anything that occupies the mind. By harmonizing with the
Tao, you will be aligned with the universal potency.

Be a man or woman of potency, not a person who undermines their life by destructive thinking, attitudes, and behavior. Be a person who does not become a "self-robber." Tao cannot be taught to ordinary people because they keep thieves in their minds. They fasten to their ignorance and the limitations of their own self-indulgence. A person of Tao treasures only Tao and focuses only on Tao.

We presume to title ourselves as a man or woman of Tao, or a friend of Tao.
However, we are all the children of Tao. If we say we are the offspring of a certain person or family, we cut ourselves off from the great root which is
Tao. Although we came through others, they were only beings, not the source of life. In other words, unless people clearly recognize the source of their lives, they will blindly devitalize themselves by becoming
"self-robbers."

One can ask, "Is God the source?" If so, then God must have some shape.
If he is formed, then he is no different than we are; he is only one of the offspring. Tao is the final source, the unformed origin of all things. Things created can only be changed or re-formed. There is no one creator of the universe, there was no particular design or laws which existed beforehand,
there was only the primal energy. Things manifest through spontaneity.
Spontaneity is the way of living things. Rigidity is the way of death.

Man's real disaster came about when he lost his naturalness. How? He started to build an artificial conceptual world. People may ask, "If man is to be natural,
why should he even bother to wear clothes?" Actually, clothes are a natural extension of our skin. It is not the clothes that are unnatural or bad,
but excessive materialism which is unnatural. Anything is right if it is a correct expression of spontaneity. Unfortunately, people today have lost their natural spontaneity as a result of living amid the contention and rivalry of modern society.

The
Tao is really simple; it is people who make it complicated. They must awaken from the complications they have created for themselves and dare to live a plain and truthful natural life.

Table of Contents

Editor's
Preface
xi

Treasure the Tao
1
Zero
Doctrine 3

What
My Mother Taught Me 9

What
Is Tao?
11
Yin and Yang
13
T'ai
Chi
19
The
Plainness of Enlightenment 20

Self-Reliance
21

God
21

Solid
Ground 22

Way to Go 23

Society
24

The
World
26
Three
Treasures 26

Intuition
27

Inspiration
28

What
I Learned from the Trees 29

Fix
It 32

Energy in Daily Life 33

Achieving
Harmony Internally and Externally 38

Gold from Sand 43

Hidden
Gift 44

Cause and Effect 45

The
High Is Built by the
Low
48
Signs of Growth
49
Sickness
49

Sober and Tipsy
53
Spiritual
Tipsiness
56
Benevolence
57

Gentleness
58

The
Value of Boredom 59

Which
Would You Prefer? 59

Fun
60

Guidance for Universal
Good 61
Emotional
Balance
67
Are
You the Person?
70
Overcome
Obstacles
71
Reading
73

Four
Things to Avoid 73

Ten
Worthy Goals
74
Some
Conditions of
Longevity 75
Love
85

Single or Married
96
The
Path of Married Life
96
Form
Does Not Affect
Essence 98
Sexual
Harmony
98
Attitude toward Sex
101
Guidelines for Health
101
Nourishment
105

Sleeping and Waking
107
Bedtime 112
Self-Inspection 113
Dreaming
115

Seasonal
Changes
118
Drive
Away the Clouds
118
Breathing
Exercise
121
Five
Energies Meditation
123
Basic
Spiritual Self-Protection
124
Invocation 129
Praying 130
Two
Kinds of Walking
135
Quiet
Watching
135
The
Nutrition of Light and Dark
139
Sun and Moon Practice
142
Friendly
Advice
145

Sources and Resources
149
Index 153