Thrice Daily

"Love Man" The main reason I say that is, re Taoism, I feel love is our natural state, we could almost say its what created us, i.e. Mom and Dad. Perhaps that is something to so with it... The essence of what you are saying with Evolution/Devolution can very clearly be seen as a microcosm of the whole in our own bodies. The Organs, their shapes, their positions, temperatures, all affecting and being affected by the muscles, tendons, bones. Life can make us Depressed, Fearful, Angry, Sad, Unbalanced. (this for me is a personal devolution and of course will be reflected in the internal organs) So if we improve our organs and/or emotional life,, I feel we can evolve, at least that's what I think, Courage, Calmness, Kindness, Happiness, Stability. (this for me is not only evolving, but returning to a balance, to a more natural state) If we are at ease internally and the organs function better and longer I think this is a good indicator we move in the right direction. Its a constant fight dark and light that of course goes way beyond and before the scope of what I'm saying here. Still what is the natural healthy state of the body? And what tends to emerge, Virtue? and same the other way around, healthy state emerges from virtue. So its a good checkpoint system that we are heading in the right direction. For me so far this is what I see in Taoist texts, this is where the wisdom is, the rest is folly. Fun, Skills, Ego, all good stuff too, but Virtue Trumps it all, In My Opinion... Or in a single word, Love, I could be wrong though and would like to read contrary opinions on evolution/devolution, towards/away from wherever it is we came from... Interesting Idea... Reminds me about about the contemplation of big bang, big crunch... Its a mega slow burner.

Love Man

Manitou, If there were an easy answer, sheesh... there would be no need to be here maybe ,, gosh, no music , no poetry, no forum, no Love. Personally I like the Love thing, and infinite Grace. That's my favourite answer why so far, love and grace. I got a daughter I think I understand to some degree what God might be getting at. I'm an optimistic at heart, go life, sort of person, are you? Sure is a trip isn't it? Like to try to be thankful of everything and say thanks each day, far less bumpy

Maybe, I like this idea put forward in the book, "Conversations with God" where God basically had to create everything, so there were separate bits not just one thing, that way it could get to know itself, through us knowing self, through experience...

It’s like any mantra really. It serves and creates the same function. Have the read the book ‘zero limits’ it is very scientific . Or at least it offers scientific rational behind mantra. it’s very interesting book. I think if you started reading it from the beginning page by page, you would not be able to put the book down for a good 30 pages…

I love counting breaths . It keeps me anchored to the practice and acts as a self meditation and good way to (at least partially) bypass the conscious mind, internal chatter etc. Even more when counting backwards. Another good thing about Mantak Chia (imho) is the emphasis on doing things 9,18,27,36 times etc its a nice rhythm counting in nines. Many times especially with physical tapping and the like, 9’s become 3 sets of 3. It’s a nice mental exercise and certainly is a good way to get around the chatter and really be present in the practices. I started doing the “Chi Self Massage” book again two nights ago before bed, so each night I’ll do a few exercises from it. It’s such a great book to commit to memory… Really good meditative chi massage. Great stuff 👍

yeah I think so, I just try to stay calm and not get too caught up in it. Hopefully good choices are made and we get help when its needed the most. At the moment it is brief for me i'm still very much in this realm most of the time, thankfully... I'm a householder.

I found this online as I’m trying to trace a lineage. Interestingly there are many names before Lao Tzu. I’d heard Taoism is of course much older, still never seen names. What do you Tao Bums make of this? The story of the return is interesting also. https://info458917.wixsite.com/with-english/lineage-of-tao Lineage of Tao According to Qingjing Jing (清靜經), “The Great Tao has no bodily form, but it produces and nourishes heaven and earth.” Tao is the origin of the universe; it exists before the beginning of heaven and earth. Fu Xi observed the movement of the heaven and earth and composed “Earlier Heaven” Bagua (the eight symbols) to indicate the wonder of the universe. This is the beginning of Tao descending. Later Xuan Yuan received advice from Guangchengzi, the Great Tao started to clarify. The Great Tao later was continued by Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, Wen, Wu, Duke of Zhou. In Zhou Dynasty, Laozi enhanced and glorified the Great Tao: he enlightened Confucius in the East; Confucius then enlightened Zengzi, Zisi and Mencius. After Mencius, lineage of the Great Tao shifted to the West, the teaching without scripts was lost. Buddhism then continued the lineage. After enlightened with Tao, Shakyamuni transmitted the Dharma (Tao) to his disciple Mahākāśyapa who was the first Patriarch of Zen. The Dharma was transmitted from one Patriarch at a time for 28 generations until Bodhidharma. At the time of Emperor Wu of Liang, Bodhidharma came to China and brought the Great Tao with him, and that was so called “the venerable stream return to the tide pool”, meaning the Great Tao lineage returns to where it originally started. Since the arrival of Bodhidharma to China, the Great Tao continued to transmit one Patriarch at a time. First Patriarch was Bodhidharma, Shén Guāng was the second, Sēng Càn the third, Daoxin the fourth, Hongren the fifth and Huineng the sixth. After Huineng and before the ninth Patriarch, for about one thousand years period, only two Patriarchs (7th and 8th Patriarchs) exited. In the interim, the Great Tao was passing down by Zen Masters and xxxxx. Until Song Dynasty, Confucian scholars arose and Neo-Confucianism (Song-Ming rational idealism) became prominent. Therefore, even though the Tao lineage was interrupted, its spirit remained. Up until Ming Dynasty, religions such as Loh and Huangtiandao sprang up, promoting beliefs in “Wusheng Laomu” (Eternal Venerable Mother) and “Longhua Three forum”, advocating the essential of the Great Tao. They also laid the foundation to the salvation in the final era. what you think? Can we discuss?

I like this idea of the native Indians. That the dream world has all the stuff that is ready to be born into actual energy in the moment. So the moment is passing into the future (filtered from all potential futures) I remember it being explained as a ‘ring pass not’ zone and it was pictured as a huge donut 🍩 we and time exist in a slice edge of the donut and take what we need from the dream world to create our actual reality. I remember reading it and smiling thinking it was a pretty nice explanation. I’ve pondered Eternal recurrence for 25 years or so now and I’ll be damned if I can come up with a decent actual theory that might be true. it’s a tough question. Changing what cannot be changed. I felt for a while it was useful to look at language in a similar sense. That is kind of working backwards as well as being created forwards, just like us , we could be working towards being the total manifestation of God. That might be what’s going on, who knows.

Seafood is good for mitochondrial health I hear particularly shellfish. I hasten to add ChiDragon if you do not work with your MDT or heart centre in any way why would you post on this thread. About opening the heart centre? Any way when you are more open to integrating this centre into your practice and being, I’d love to talk with you more about it. There is only so far I can get on Abdominal breathing alone. Did you know certain native Indians believed there was egg like structure that resided just out of the body at the level of the heart chakra behind the back. They believed it connected them to ‘the second attention’ it could all be fairytale of course but it does make for a compelling read, should you be inclined. All the best ChiDragon , May the Chi find you good wherever you are.

Instinct - Facts? Well I guess you could see it like that. Do you work much with MDT ChiDragon? Loving Kindness Meditation, Metta, Inner Smile?

When life presents us with choices, with directions to follow and a need for action/reaction... Some people follow their hearts, Some people use their heads, Some follow their gut instinct. How different life would be if we had approached these three centres differently in some of the choices we made... Listening to the heart can create so much trouble, if the gut is telling you strongly, use your head,,, listen to your gut...

George Church is a professor of genetics at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and also co-author of the book Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves in DNA. With a title like that, it’s only fitting that the book was used to break the record that it recently did – Church led a team that encoded 70 billion html copies of the book in DNA. That’s 1,000 times more data than the previous record. https://newatlas.com/book-dna-data-storage/23848/

Good Point

Did you try the six healing sounds I think you would love them. You can get seriously deep into the abdominal cavity on the exhale. You’d love it i think , there are specific stretches for each muscle tendon , that feeds the organs. Judging by the amount of Taiji you do, six sounds would be most interesting I should gather. it changes my lower abs a lot and quite quickly if I practice every day. The muscles are supple but strong. you have to exhale completely though , squeeze out every bit of breath and hold before next inhalation .

Sound I don’t think it’s so much validation, more just sharing in case people resonate or are at a similar place to get something from reading, well that’s intention any way, and yeah learn a bit myself hopefully. No worries , thanks for that, appreciated.

🤦‍♂️

You have still described three part breath but the last part was not really described fully, it takes a little more will for the additional third part of breath Next time you try the breath you describe, when you feel you have taken the full breath, try slightly pursing your lips and try to suck air into the the top so you even feel sensation tightening around clavicles. Even into the neck, you don’t need to force it , it can be quite gentle. Tell yourself mentally “I can breathe in three times more air” you will fill a lot more up. Trust me, it works.

Yeah through all the layers one by one I settle on their qualities. Earth, stone, rocks, granite, minerals, crystals and precious stones, magma etc. I really try to hone into just how massive the earth is and where I am on it. Tiny , yet part of it. Totally protected by it… Yeah sure it’s very protective the earth I find. I’m pretty sure I picked up the meditation from one of Dr Usui first students for Reiki… I always practiced it with Reiki. Now it is a stand alone practice and I try to do it daily now. Do you practice Gratitude? I include gratitude in Qigong for the organs and thank them everyday for the work they do. It is a process and I feel very worthwhile one. Gratitude I do reach into the cosmos yes. Mostly I tend to meditate on stars and ponder the reality of stars and their cycles, how they impact solar systems and galaxies. I don’t tend to get too deep it’s more like a humbling really and gratitude practice. When I reach out of my own energy field though I make it a sincere wish before hand that I only reach out as far as grounding will allow. Thanks for replying in depth by the way I enjoyed reading. Yes with grounding I became very aware when training in massage therapy. It’s no good closing my eyes and doing a ground for 30 seconds, and then getting deep into someone’s personal energy. I don’t think that offers protection. I think grounding needs to be in balance with reaching out, and there should be great confidence in the ability to ground, stay grounded and return to grounding calmly if anything suddenly appears in a practice or treatment. Grounding the shock of you will rather than have it effect my energy and bodily systems. In most hands on cases though it’s more to prevent a draining of my own personal energy, in the early stages I think we could call it compassion fatigue. From wanting to help too much. Do you practice grounding everyday as an active part of your routine?

Fair play, thanks for chiming in, and as I say sorry about the add if you hadn’t been in the thread so far. Stilling and Consolidation of Jing, interesting thanks 🙏

No problem. It was easier than quoting. I figured it would be ok as a shortcut. I’m typically only doing it if you’ve commented on the post so far. Apologies if you didn’t comment on this thread already. I like reading your opinions on things. So if you were inclined to share an opinion on grounding practices. I’d be all ears. Can I ask where abouts do you come from? Where did you grow up. I’m from the U.K. and I’m aware I can slip into a colloquial and slackened grammar style. Are you from the States?

If you had a time machine and you could travel back to before you started Taoist practices. And met face to face with your younger self… What advice would you give the fledgling you? What wisdom/insights would you share? If any.

Personally I believe God created the Tao. What do you think?

Yeah I’ve set out to meet on bridges between the two traditions. The book is made of a lot of quotes from Modern Taoists , Ancient Sages and Christian Mystics , new and old. Its a simple book as I say, serving to bridge the gap really and meet in the middle, with Grace and Humility, Love, if you will the Tao and God. Its optimistic , in these times though I think anything that draws people into these traditions is a good thing

Cool thread, very cool. I’d love to hear about some of these things from a Taoist perspective. These are just beliefs that I’ve accumulated over the years that seem to hold some sway when I practice. 1/. A, Practicing or just standing on earth is great for grounding, physically we can share electrons with the earth and helps soothe emotions 1/. B, the earth can help recycle negative emotions. The earth energy has a wisdom and doesn’t think in terms of good and bad, positive and negative all the same, helping bring balance in the human energy system where it is needed. 2/. Rubber soled shoes makes interacting with Chi, Energy, Electrons of earth through feet difficult if not impossible. Except for when practicing in nature and being engulfed by nature , the effects of being in nature can still be felt with rubber soles as you’re surrounded but best to take off shoes. 3/. Wood transmits energy real well, next is stone , so being in buildings it’s still possible to ground energy through the building structure (easier closer to the ground though, a lot easier) 4/. Doing good grounding practices (yes visualisations to begin) connecting deeply with earth energy (I go down to the core), a kind of self hypnosis/guided meditation to enable to stay calm in practices no matter what and keep the heart safe can be very important (for the health of the physical heart as well). Especially dealing with psychic energies with others on the earth plane… 5/. In martial arts using the earth for grounding is like putting the energy outside of the body and even for a split second finding a zero point and coming from a true moment of none action can help line up the body and self to deal with/redirect on coming force from an opponent. it creates a great balance in body, mind and I would say spirit. 6/. Sometimes when energy is in a good place for it, the awareness can easily extend to the bottom of the feet and often below the body. You can put your attention there and sense below the body with simple concentration if you try, as you also can above the top of the head etc. 7/. The earth is vital if you really want to understand the roles of fire and metal (at least) . A deep appreciation of Earth in this sequence is totally required to really get into knowing your vital organs, the functions and corresponding emotions. All being in a state of interaction and changes. 8/. You can benefit from the earth’s grounding nature internally, simply easily and quickly by breaking your fast and eating food. thanks for reading I’d love to hear you elaborate on any of my points through a Taoist Lens @Nungali @Taomeow @Shadow_self @ChiDragon @Lukks