I do not see this book talked about much, which is too bad because it is in my view the first book anyone interested in Daoist practical arts (be it qi gong, martial arts, calligraphy, Daoist dietary practices) ought to read.

I am talking about Harold Roth’s book titled Original Tao. It is a translation of the Nei Yeh, Inner Training. It has a skillfully done translation with the Chinese characters and a lot of extra and very useful background material. My wife and I have both looked at the translation and it is first rate.

It is the oldest surviving Daoist text that discusses in somewhat specific detail Daoist personal practices. And when I say “oldest” I mean oldest with a verifiable history. The text is not particularly long, if I remember right it is about as long as the Daode Jing. One of the central concepts of the Nei Yeh/Inner Training is the concept of “zheng” (正) which Roth generally translates as “aligned” or “alignment”.

The book covers seated meditation, diet, metaphysics and the relationship between qi and ching. Let me be quick to add it is not a DIY book, it can better be viewed as a kind of Daode Jing for personal health. Nonetheless I would recommend this book as the first book to buy—but I know it is kind of pricey. I think it is only available as a Columbia University hardback which means it will reduce your wallet.

To get a feel for Harold Roths approach to things, I am pretty sure he has some of his papers for free on the internet. For folks interested in the Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) he has done some of the best work available in english on that book.

Take care,
Brian

Cool, Cheers Brian

BTW Think I found an affordable copy is this the book?

http://www.amazon.com/Original-Tao-Foundat...s/dp/0231115652

it is a fantastic book , i readily concur.

Here is a stab at a translation from a guy on alt.philosophy.taoism I posted a ways back:
Neiye (Nei-yeh) - Inner Cultivation (Inward Training)

Best,
Sean

There is also a page that offers all Taoist texts including that one. But I lost track of it.

Maybe there is someone in here who knows and can link it in this thread.

Sean Sean, quick, delete it.
Or Brian will ban you ;-)

I read the text Sean posted.

Im wondering what is meant by "aligned". Is it like synchronisity? Like when you are at the right place at the right time? Being moved by the holy spirit or concepts like that? Or does the author mean something completely different that we cannot translate to other practices and other words? Anyone care to explain?

Im also wondering about the "heart". In the comments the translator said that Xin means heart/mind more than heart.

I have the feeling that this is not quite what western spiritual people would consider heart-centered kind of fuzzy and warm love, is it? My feeling is that it points towards the spiritual center, or core of our being and conciousness.

Some people distinguish between the human heart(not the physical), which is warm and fuzzy feelings, and the spiritual heart, which is more about total acceptance of what IS at any given time. My uneducated guess is that Xin in this text relates more to the spiritual heart or center of our being, than to the regular heart chakra energy. What do you guys think?

I have lent the book for some days, but I could not really get into it.
Said that, my teacher, Alan Peatfield, has the biggest respect for Harold Roth.
He even once wrote me that:



Take care,
Pietro

I'm told in traditional Chinese texts "heart" = western idea of "mind" or Consciousness

My understanding is that aligned has different applications, respect to what context we are talking about. If we are speaking about the body, then you need to keep your body so that the energy flows freely through it. So that the push, from the hand goes to the wrist. From the wrist, goes to the elbow, from the elbow goes to the shoulder. And then down to the earth. Then of course there is being aligned to the earth, so the energy flows down all the way to the earth. But this is just the most basic form of being aligned. You can also being aligned at the emotional level, mental level, between the levels.
And between your body and outside (respect to the earth, or respect to heaven, for example).

Once you are aligned (not just physically) then yes, syncronicity might start to happen. But is that important? It looks more like the a fruit, not the root of the practice.

Pietro

正 means "correct".

One other thing Ive noticed in the comments is the translation to "faculties", or "senses". He say the word guan actually means "government".

Wouldnt it then mean "how you govern yourself", the aspect of you that takes desicions, choose what to do and how to go about your life. To me it makes more sense to not "let the world confuse my government(making desicion, choosing)" than not to "confuce my senses, or faculties(whatever that means)"

It also makes sense to me that my desicions should not confuse my heart. When my heart controlls(not the right word, please see beyond my bad english) my desicions, I am more at center than if my desicions would be products of external influences.

Thanks, Brian, for bringing it up, and Sean, for bringing it forth!

Nice indeed.

As for "aligned": "can't be defined, can be described" -- here's a few examples (out of an infinity of possible ones) that it immediately brought to mind.

In a truly beautiful place, by the seaside overlooking some mountains in the distance, I once saw a mass of clouds build a landscape in the sky that replicated the shape of the mountains below in uncanny detail, including man-made details (a tall tower, some houses...) --
just like in that poem whose only line surviving in my memory goes,
"the shape of the mountains reveals the shape of the wind." Or, in this case, the shape of the mountains determined the shape of the wind. The wind aligned itself to the mountains, themselves an outcome of having aligned to some ancient wind... Things (and creatures) create each other by noticing each other (by whatever means at their disposal -- sight, touch, chemical analysis -- by the tongue or the roots -- sound, color, vibration, electrical discharge, just "being there" as a whole...) -- and aligning to each other naturally. Whatever can't, or "doesn't want to," is off, misaligned, dislocated...

Manhattan always looked crystalline to me from a distance -- very much like some mass of natural (strangely enough) crystals pushing upward, growing in a pattern of regular irregularity, order within variability, that one sees in natural mineral formations. It was with great satisfaction that I found out that it rests on a foundation of hard basalt rock -- I sort of figured that it grew the way it did propelled by an aligning force from below, unbeknownst to the human minds and hands building it under its influence. (Other cities that started building skyscraper landscapes all over the world then aligned themselves with this one I think -- because of its upward-pushing/condensing strong metal-fire yang power derived from its foundation.)

My teacher says, "like those wooden name tablets they place on the altar in traditional Chinese homes when a relative dies -- upright, aligned with the earth below and heaven above, connecting them -- that's the posture of taiji."

There appears to be a less expensive paper back edition of this book. There are several for sale on www.abebooks.com.
Steve

Yes, thank you Brian and Taomeow and others like them, for keeping our heads where they belong, and for the quality of the ideas and even guidance. TTB needs more like you

Here's another good treatise on internal alchemy to supplement the Nei Yeh:


http://www2.arts.ubc.ca/bcar/no12/articles/crowe/article.pdf

I am often quite guilty of saying Chinese word x means y and my wife gently scolds me about that. The reason being, most Chinese characters do not mean anything in the abstract. They are either part of set phrases or need to be seen in context.

A good example is zheng. Just sitting on a piece of paper by itself the word means nothing. An example of some of the meanings and phrases that use zheng can be found here.

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?...eng&wdrst=1

take care,
Brian

So, yesterday I was having a lesson with my teacher, Alan, so I happen to tell him about this whole discussion. After this I was treated with a whole half an hour description and history about the term zhèng ( 正 ).

Essentially he told me that the term zhèng is very important in t'ai chi ch'uan. Where it is very much used in the t'ai chi classics. It became popular with with Cheng Man-ch'ing, and for the time people translated it as upright. This was seen as a physical position, mostly meaning to be vertical and perpendicular to the ground. Then eventually as it became clear that Cheng man-ch-ing t'ai chi was quite etherodox, people went to look for the source, and try to understand what zhèng actually meant. So then they looked at the old pictures from Yang Ch'eng-fu, and from Yang Chien-hou (I hope I got those right, I am not a martial artist myself), and they saw how they were very straight with their back, but at an angle. So then zhèng started to mean straight. As all in one line. He then told me how aligned (used by Roth) is a better translation, and it can also mean upright, as to be morally upright. But also to have things go together. Either inside yourself, or respect to you and something outside. So a confucianist would see the position of a man to be zhèng versus society.

P.S. Buddy, Alan asked me to thank you for having said that he is a "famous" european teacher. He said he was quite flattered, although he said he never felt or knew he was that famous.

"Original Tao" has a good translation. There are others as well, but i'm not sure what's available on Amazon.com