Michael Sternbach

So wu wei would then really mean not taking any action... except perhaps listening to the birds singing and watching the grass grow. But wei wu wei would be acting as a part of the natural flow, wouldn't it? (The non-dualist thingie here.)

Hmmm... I thought that Wu wei doesn't really mean non-action (philosophically speaking) but rather, um, let's say spontaneous or intuitive action or, in fact, being one with one's action (no line between the action and the agent). But then, what's the difference to Wei wu wei? Any illuminating thoughts, Tao tigers?

Actually, Taurus does have a spiritual side... Let's call it "nature spirituality."

Stefos, If self and love are mutually exclusive, then: - Who is it who loves? - Who is it who (wishes to) receive love? - Who do you love (if not another self)?

The eternal Daoist wanderer...

I think that intimate relationships are powerful vehicles for spiritual growth - where intense love is activated, things that are not in line with it tend to surface. Projection on the partner gets involved. What matters is not so much to avoid these things as to understand what is truly happening and use it to heal what is in need of healing inside you.

The capacity to 'tune into' other people is not as special as it may seem. In the Silva Mind Control course, quite average people perform this fairly well after four days of training in relaxation and visualization techniques. Like with anything else, talent helps but I guess people who are interested in that kind of seminar are among the more talented ones to begin with. Most of all, practice is important if you are really interested in fine tuning such skills. After taking that seminar, I gathered a few other attendants in order to practice this regularly. Next, my patients in that psychiatric practice gave me a chance to practice on hundreds of cases with all the feedback I needed. This made it easy to learn to intuit all kinds of consciously still unknown data about people, starting with seeing them in the mind's eye the way they actually looked. I'm quite sure that you, Woodcarver, would be doing it nicely with a little practice, but if you don't want to pursue this, that's totally respectable. It can bring certain difficulties with it even though there are ways to deal with those. Horus said some really interesting things in this regard.

I grant you that your outlook is nuanced. But I'm not sure what exactly you mean by 'transcending sensual things?'

Generally, I find it strange how some people seem to see sexuality as contradictory to spirituality. Some clerics will agree. But (Western or Eastern) alchemists, tantra yoga practitioners, Wilhelm Reich, Jane Robert's Seth, and I see this differently.

Von Reichenbach's research showed chi to have two poles, too (oddly, he called it od). And, um, he was using magnets in some of his studies.

Hmm... But the I Ching is talking about things unfolding in time. Much like astrology, btw. Time may be illusionary, from a higher perspective, but we do experience and measure it nonetheless. Especially as change (the Book of Change-?!).

It's natural that we would like our partner to share our view on love and life. But better don't start with this if you can't be too sure to be understood! Maybe they'll be open to your perspective once they know what a nice and desirable man you are (even though the latter may lead to some kind of paradox here...). Or try to make contact with somebody hot in a spiritual seminar.

I think there is indeed a mathematical scheme underlying the whole of King Wen's order. Some of the links given in this thread make this quite clear. It's also an interesting observation that odd and even numbered hexagrams, respectively, develop on from previous odd and even numbered hexagrams, respectively. But I wonder, in what manner, mathematically speaking? Any illuminating thoughts?

Funny... The postman brought me that book yesterday. I need to get a few coloured candles and other stuff before I can try out some of the techniques. I think it's very cool.

If it is of any help... I would love to see that text!

Sunbeam, I know what you're talking about. I always strongly resonated with other people's feelings (including their disturbances), from childhood on. I didn't always know the source of what I was feeling at that time, it was quite upsetting. Around age 20, I started consciously developing the ability to "tune into" people even remotely and get all kinds of information about them. This was particularly useful when I was working as an alternative therapist in the 90s. For example, there was that young woman from Yugoslavia who had arranged a session with me for psychological reasons. Before seeing her for the first time, I "scanned" her in my mind. I felt some aches in her lower back as if they were my own. The condition persisted for a couple of hours. When I met her later the same day, she confirmed my perception. I told her that, according to what I had seen by my inner vision, the reason for the aches was a misalignment of her pelvis due to one of her legs being slightly shorter than the other. She said that's what her doctor had told her, too. I did this kind of diagnosis successfully (and often painfully) hundreds of times. I'm glad that I'm not doing it any longer! But the basic receptivity doesn't vanish. It does take some ego strength to keep it straight. Yes, unlike some other "bums", I confess that I actually do have an ego! And I don't consider it to be an illusion. It's what makes me a psychologically distinct personality in the sea of collective consciousness (the "hive" as I sometimes call it jokingly). My ego's boundaries seem to be a little more permeable than most other people's, that's all the difference. I also think that training or cultivation goes a long way in enhancing as well as learning to open up and, hopefully, close down this kind of perception at will.

Thanks for your PM. I think to get the most out of the Seth books you need to read them repeatedly and let their contents sink in well. Seth himself says in "Seth Speaks" that he is addressing the deeper layers of the psyche where the messages would be understood. This also reflects the 'conversational' manner in which the material was conveyed. Surely, Seth himself didn't provide much in the way of summaries. I guess that's partially why some people which I enthusiastically recommended the Seth books to couldn't cope with them well. I struggled myself with putting the jigsaw pieces together to form a coherent picture. There are a few books available along these lines, but they were not written either by Jane Roberts or her husband. Actually, I think it would be an excellent exercise to try to write a summary yourself. Those books are not necessarily an easy read even though an extremely worthwhile one.

GreytoWhite, Thanks for all these informations. The video looks very interesting. I'm sure you will make and post a translation from Chinese? Just kidding... For one thing, you told us that you're rather into Japanese arts like Shinkage-ryu and Daito-ryu... I find the latter particularly appealing, in context with my background in Aikido. I once thought of it as much more "martial"/realistic than Aikido, but having watched some videos and read some books, I'm not so sure about this any more. It rather looks like yet another style of Aikido to me (except that it's older).

To me, this is one of the greatest chapters. I don't take the part about not having desires so seriously, here or anywhere else in the TTC. Desires are a natural and very necessary part of our existence. What such sentences mean (at least to me) is not to let your desires control you to the extent that you loose your peace of mind (aka connection to the Dao). I read this as an early description of the way of doing things that has been called flow in modern psychology. It's also known in the martial arts. I think I first consciously experienced this state in my teenage years after I had been reading the I Ching for the first time. I felt one with the world. It was during a holiday in Italy. I went to the beach afterwards together with my sister where we used to play table soccer. Normally, we were quite on equal grounding, but that morning she didn't stand the slightest chance. No goal remained unscored on my part... effortlessly! This state is no different from Wu wei.

Beautiful deck, Seth. Ridge in esoteric symbols - and humorous, too. Some of the symbolism makes me think of an influence by the RWS and Thoth decks, or perhaps by the Golden Dawn in general.

GreytoWhite, Your video is showing once again that Taiji and White Crane have a number of principles in common. I am still interested to find out more about White Crane's Fa-jin methods. As you certainly know, there are several Fujian White Crane styles. Why do you think that Liu family's Feeding Crane in particular was a major influence?

I rather think that Aikido was too esoteric or "soft" for them. The same reason why they actually even turned down Goju-ryu, Wado-ryu and Shito-ryu Karate. JKA Shotokan with its straightforward "kill or get killed" approach came in handy. Obviously some misunderstanding here... you mean this sequence? Yes, this makes sense - capture that arm, then reversed fist strike or vertical back knuckle to the head. You can also throw a kick in as shown just before 2:30. But I'm not sure how you would catch kick with any of these moves? Btw, when I wrote that kicks to the bladder work well, what I meant was simply a short forward thrust kick off the front leg. Hurts like a bitch. If nothing else, it drives the adversary backwards (well, mostly his lower section) - making him stretch out his neck. A chop to the carotid sinus, delivered with the front hand, will then almost certainly result in a knock-out. Groin kicks for self-defence are overrated, imo ("just kick 'em all in the nuts and get out of there"). They're unreliable - some guys can take quite a hard hit there in the heat of a fight as David above reports, too. Plus, men are reflexively very protective of their groin. Okay. My primary source on Matsumura Shorin-ryu is George W. Alexander who studied from Kuda and also did a lot of original research on the Okinawan White Crane variation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2BimSrNmhc Talking about the Aikido links: A lot to read - very interesting material. Much appreciated.

Okay. Autumn is Yin relative to summer, but Yang relative to winter. Judo is Yin relative to Karate, but Yang relative to Aikido. Toto is Yin relative to Saxon, but Yang relative to Celine Dion. Angelina Jolie is Yang relative to Audrey Hepburn but Yin relative to Sylvester Stallone.

The book I recommend contains (besides the classical methods) a special qigong form for diabetes patients that takes about 45 minutes to perform and which unites a number of proven traditional techniques. This is of course not meant to belittle other methods.

Thanks for the feedback. Glad to be of assistance, especially regarding alternative medical treatments, including more serious health problems. There is such a lack of knowledge regarding this generally, albeit the situation has improved over the last decades. So much good can be done in this area.