After learning about the "Microcosmic bodies," now that you've got the basics of the D1, D6, and D8 concepts down, let's dive into how our macrocosmic bodies work. Picture this: there are three levels, starting with D1 at the top, followed by D6, and finally D8, where we live in reality.
So, we've got our physical body, which you already know about. Our local D1, D6, and D8 bodies all overlap. Then there's the place we live, our Yang House, or physical house. It's the tangible stuff we can see. Everything here is the final result of what's happened in those other dimensions.
Every night when we hit the sack, our energy gathers up and zooms back into our body and heart, then beams up to what we call "space." If you've seen those videos where folks send weather balloons up with cameras, that's kinda like where our soul heads to. Your soul has its own spot there, known as your Ghost Altar, or Yin House – your spiritual house in D6. If you're living with family, all your Ghost Altars kind of merge, sharing a Yin House. Imagine your Yin House as a mountain in a spiritual landscape. A healthy, successful life looks like a lush forest with sturdy trees. A tough, draining life? More like a barren, lifeless mountain.
Going higher up from the ghost altar, right up where our sun is – that's where the Yuen Suns hang out. But they're not in the same dimension as our hot, visible sun (that's in D8). The Yuen Suns are in D1, in what we call the Yuen Sun Palace. That's the life source for all living things around here, like a huge battery storing all our life energy. This is a picture that shows how the Yuen Sun Palace area would look like!
When we sleep, our soul heads to the Ghost Altar, which flings it up to the Yuen Sun. The Yuen Sun's like, "Hey, I've got some energy I don't need," and swaps it for the weary, stressed-out vibes we're lugging around (think exchanging bad air for good, like trees do with CO2 and oxygen). So, the Yuen Sun stays juiced up, and we wake up feeling fresh and ready to rock another day.
That's the lowdown on our macrocosmic bodies. Understanding this cosmic ballet helps us get why things work the way they do in our lives and how we can use this knowledge in our Taoist practices. Our Yuen Sun, is a spiritual planet and not a physical one, and so don't expect to see it with your naked eyes!
Let's talk about what happens every day in our lives, which I like to call the Virtue Cycle. As we go about our day, we experience stuff – see things, hear things – and all these experiences turn into memories full of light and energy. This energy gets transformed and sent up to the Yuen Sun. This is where the magic happens – an exchange between our everyday world (postheaven) and the spiritual world (preheaven). When we wake up, we're all charged up with this fresh preheaven energy from the Yuen Sun, ready to tackle another day. But here's the catch: if we're not careful about what we're sending back up to the Yuen Sun, we might end up with a lousy day. Think waking up on the wrong side of the bed, making bad calls all day – that kind of stuff.
Being virtuous means being mindful of what we're giving back to the Yuen Sun. We take so much from it, so we gotta be careful about what we're sending back.
The Yuen Sun kind of sets the direction and focus for our lives, right? But then there's the ghost altar, which gives us the juice we need throughout the day. The state of your ghost altar has a big impact on how you think and feel when you're awake. Like, if your ghost altar is running on empty, you're likely going to feel pretty lousy. Low energy, negative vibes, not wanting to do anything – it's like everything feels like a drag.
Now, when we get that energy back from the Yuen Sun, it first hits our local D1, the energy body, which perks up our heart. The heart then uses this energy to power up our soul in D6, and finally, it shows up in our actions in D8, pushing us to do stuff. So, you've got the Yuen Sun, ghost altar, and your local body – these are what we call the macrocosmic bodies. Then there's your energy body, soul body, and physical body – these are the microcosmic bodies because they're all close-knit. These two sets of bodies are super connected and affect each other big time. That's why us Taoists pay so much attention to understanding and maintaining them, using our Taoist know-how and wisdom.
There are many misleading information all around the internet and bookstore about the micro and macro cosmic cycle. Many people would be confused because the whole concept is not about space-science and definitely not about the solar system and such. People from outside are trying too hard by mixing space science and modern science into Taoism. In fact, it's not related and you can only have an opportunity to witness these elements if you have cultivated up to a certain level. At the same time, even those who cultivated to that level want to tell the story, they don't have all the high tech tools to generate the images for others to "see" them anyway, so most would just remain quiet and keep the secrets to themselves.
Jee Sifu and the other masters here have witnessed these themselves and had countless experiences working in people's Yuen Sun. Therefore, these information here are exclusively from their heart and not from books or sources out there. However, if you get ordained and cultivate in this sect with us, you would later know why all these information is related and how important it is to know about them now.
