[Taoism] Bruce Kumar Frantzis - Eight Energy Bodies and the Mindstream? - Discussion
[Taoism] Bruce Kumar Frantzis - Eight Energy Bodies and the Mindstream?
neko, modified 6 Years ago at 2/19/18 4:05 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 2/19/18 3:53 AM
[Taoism] Bruce Kumar Frantzis - Eight Energy Bodies and the Mindstream?
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This question is for anyone who knows about Taoist practices like Neijia / Qigong / Daoyin. I hope CJ Macie in particuar reads this
Bruce Kumar Frantzis is a pretty active teacher of Taoist stuff. I am reading the first book of his two-parts work on the Water Method of Taoist Meditation. He uses two concepts I am having difficulty wrapping my head around:
* The Eight Energy Bodies, summary here by Paulo P:
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/Paulo+P+on+the+Taoist+Map+of+Bruce+Frantzis
* The Mindstream, which is never described in a way that I find satisfyingly clear for me. For example 'the stream within which the totality of the mind, both conscious and unconscious, travels'... that could mean a bunch of different things.
A search on Google only returns these two terms on his own multiple blogs and websites, which is a red flag. Questions:
1) Are these an innovation of his, or do they have traditional Chinese roots?
2) What would the Chinese words for these two concepts be?
3) How would these map to Buddhist notions? For example, is there a correspondence between the three+ kayas and the eight bodies? It would seem to be easy to make such a map out of the blue, but if these are traditional terms, I am pretty sure there must be some discussion perhaps in the context Chan Buddhism. Could the mindstream be related to e.g. alayavijñana?
EDIT:
Some more searching returned this: Mind Stream / citta-santana on Wikipedia. As I suspected, citta-santana is basically a reworking of alaya-vijñana. So it would appear to be a Buddhist concept, Yogacara specifically, and not a Daoist one.
Bruce Kumar Frantzis is a pretty active teacher of Taoist stuff. I am reading the first book of his two-parts work on the Water Method of Taoist Meditation. He uses two concepts I am having difficulty wrapping my head around:
* The Eight Energy Bodies, summary here by Paulo P:
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/Paulo+P+on+the+Taoist+Map+of+Bruce+Frantzis
* The Mindstream, which is never described in a way that I find satisfyingly clear for me. For example 'the stream within which the totality of the mind, both conscious and unconscious, travels'... that could mean a bunch of different things.
A search on Google only returns these two terms on his own multiple blogs and websites, which is a red flag. Questions:
1) Are these an innovation of his, or do they have traditional Chinese roots?
2) What would the Chinese words for these two concepts be?
3) How would these map to Buddhist notions? For example, is there a correspondence between the three+ kayas and the eight bodies? It would seem to be easy to make such a map out of the blue, but if these are traditional terms, I am pretty sure there must be some discussion perhaps in the context Chan Buddhism. Could the mindstream be related to e.g. alayavijñana?
EDIT:
Some more searching returned this: Mind Stream / citta-santana on Wikipedia. As I suspected, citta-santana is basically a reworking of alaya-vijñana. So it would appear to be a Buddhist concept, Yogacara specifically, and not a Daoist one.