Taoist Texts

The Bronze Age of China The bronze age of China, as far as present knowledge goes, ranges from the middle of the second millennium B.C. to the middle of the first millennium B.C. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-9666-7_3 The first reliable reference to Laozi is his "biography" in the Records of the Grand Historian (63, tr. Chan 1963:35–37), by Chinese historian Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BC), which combines three stories. In the first, Laozi was a contemporary of Confucius (551–479 BC). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching are we ok on the bronze age? ;)

Dear Dwai i keep pointing to the conflicts in you position but you do not respond to my questions. I will try one more time. Your translation says: the link right above that you provided https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/samadhi#yoga says In sūtra II.45, samādhi itself is called as siddhi. https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/yoga-sutras-study/d/doc628779.html Could you please explain how Patanjali both says how siddhi are impediments to samadhi AND that samadhi is siddhi. Surely those are conflicting statements? Thanks;)

of course i will be happy to oblige. Please start a new topic lets not derail this one

i did not say we are. The point is made moot by you first saying one thing and then saying the opposite of it. First you said that siddhis are not relevant or are impediment then you say some are some are not. did not you just said that there are siddhis that matters? You said: i think you typed samadhi instead of siddhi. sorry you sound confused. Please look at this. this is from the link that you provided as a proof of your claims: i am sorry again but this link that you provided as an authoritative proof sounds very confused as well. How can a siddhi which is samadhi be an impediment to samadhi?

and then flush it down the drain

ah all righty then. This makes our previous dispute totally moot so thank you. of course. Like i said the conventional opinion on all traditional matters is completely, 180 degrees opposite to the truth...it is fascinating actually how it always works that way te these are samādhāvupasargā from samadhi vyutthāne derived siddhayaḥ siddhis

This is not an adequate transl, but lets take it at face value for now. A question: do 'these powers' manifest after attaining samadhi or before attaining samadhi?

no

The sages do not act from (any wish to be) benevolent; they deal with the people as the dogs of grass are dealt with. DDJ5 the sage, in the exercise of his government, empties their minds, fills their bellies, weakens their wills, and strengthens their bones. DDJ3 https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing/ens

i can use it to light up the Brooklyn Bridge after i buy it next

exactly. and quite brutally too!

errm no i asked you. i am satisfied that you have no answer. it was a learning exercise that i provided for the benefit of the others. thanks for playing.

thanks for asking! DDJ is a manual for governing a bronze age state. Later it was interpreted as a sacred text that can be applied to anything including of course neidan. Yi Jing is a stone/bronze age divination cheat sheet. Later it was used to model the neidan process with it. Although of the (very roughly) same historical period these two texts contain no cross-reference at all. Both became parts of the confucian curriculum. Neidan first and foremost is a confucian art, taoism is an afterthought in neidan. The main reason why DDJ and YJ have nothing to do with neidan originally its because the human consciousness was evolving over the course of history. The bronze age man did not mind death but actually welcomed it being certain of going to a better place, he absolutely did not need immortality since he had it already. The pre-modern man however was less sure so he needed an immortality technique which the neidan is, nothing else but immortality . Not any wishy-washy verbiage. Immortality.

this is correct this is not. but still all good.

heh. you can bet the farm on it.

it is still excellent. good for you!

(sigh) thats absolutely opposite to what the text say. I am fascinating how this works in peeps minds. they always pick not just any old wrong answer but the one which completely refutes the tradition.

hehe - well you see there are two sources of the fluid. one is advanced another is not so much but both are good and not one of them is secret both are in OSINT. come on tell us, it will not impugne you!

oh congrats. where exactly did it flow from?

not a lot for what? what do you get exactly for it?

This is how it is done now: Hmm so is it a few hours or decades?

There are small but crucial differences between hoax, humbug, and out-and-out fraud, and Barnum tread dangerously close to transgressing at times. Still, Barnum was in the business of entertainment, and he always managed to deliver entertainment value to his customers. Even those who were tricked had to admit they had a good time in the process, and that it was worth the money they had paid. ...crowd began to form, watching the man and wondering what he was doing. Many of the crowds followed him into the museum just to see what was going on http://www.ptbarnum.org/humbugs.html

yes all of them because it is a very ancient concept first recorded in a medical classic of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangdi_Neijing as 「移精变气」 so it is not unique to neidan. Also it is generally believed that 'Jing to Qi' stage is the same the foundation and the initial stage.

yes, except if after a few days nothing happens then you are doing it wrong

Of course, anytime this is a snippet of a 1 hour long chinese reel on him https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1wY411V7M2/