Yasjua

I grew up 99% ignorant of gender identity. It never made any sense to me. I avoided becoming super "manly" because I saw it as a facade for ordinary human vulnerability. I also never really saw women as inferior or anything. Male and female identity roles seem like... guidelines more than anything. I've worn lots of women's clothing throughout my life and have never taken shit for it. In other words, I've taken a playful position around gender expectations. Some feminists I know seem extremely combative and aggressive. This is psychologically complex to deal with for me. Here I am suddenly being bashed on by someone for using language they found offensive, when I've never in my life taken gender identity seriously, and enjoy playing with and against stereotypes in my day to day speech and decision-making. I really took it to the chin today for suggesting I poop like a little girl.

Just curious.

Just so you know, TCM and Daoism are very different beasts. I don't know many people who understand their connection very well. TaoMeow seems to be one them.

I like Robert Anton Wilson's explanation: we live in reality tunnels that are mostly based on how our brains interpret and respnod to reality. I like to think genes and neurotransmitters and nerves are little encoders/decoders. Serotonin, aside from being a mere molecule, also contains the experience, or even the soul of happiness. When it courses through the brain the experience blooms out of the chemical seed. I am a materialist, maybe even a reductionist in some people's eyes, but I've spent a ton of time on the other end of the pendulum as well. I do not see myself as a reductionist. I see complex consequences of complex systems. Anything can happen. And consciousness has expanded the possibility of complexity. I share some beliefs with the Buddhist folks - there's no self, soul, or any other kind of static psychic character to the human being. I think ego is better described as "behaviors," "patterns," and "processes." Explaining the material in terms of the immaterial is usually called "metaphysics," and I have a fairly strong opposition to it. Rather, I think that with the instruments and knowledge we have available to us today, we can look closely and deeply at the material and suddenly, without philosophical speculation or metaphysical dogma, the immaterial can open up to us in a very personal way. I'm an oddcase because I have no particular talent for logic, but thinking in metaphors and metaphysics makes me mentally sick. So I root myself in observable phenomena and let their complexities and interactions awe me. That's about all I really need to know - reality is awe-some. I'll get glimmers of how the damn thing works, but I don't push for it these days.

I like getting work done on me. Laying down and letting my Rolfer tug things out of me for an hour and a half once or twice a month, or getting acupuncture done, or some other form of co-created somatic experiencing. The process is effortless, very pleasant, and some pretty interesting states of mind are induced that I can knead on internally as the therapist works on the structure. The opportunity to process things in reference to another person, who's also processing your shit for you, is a great combo. Otherwise, I find taking 20-30 minutes in the middle of the day to lay down, relax all my muscles, and drift into delta helps reset any harmful momentum I've accumulated over the day... and there's always plenty in my case. I have problems... ha ha ha ha.

^Jajajaja

Some of what you've said here indicates a huge breakthrough in your thinking. Other parts are iterations of your old beliefs. I think there are two new things to question here: 1) Why believe in source anyway? The concept of source, creator, god, spirit, or whatever else, was an hallucination we collectively designed to explain things that are not in control. When you make a religion or a spirituality of it, you willfully assign power to that unperceivable-unknown and look to it for navigation. It is a deferment of full and total responsibility for your life to something "higher" - but perhaps there are no highs and lows - perhaps spirit and matter are polarities of the psyche, not of reality. I suggest looking for spirit in observable systems, not in etheric and supradimensional thinking. Look for your simple powers - the power of observation, the power of discernment, the power of hormones, the power of digestion - those are your strength and completeness. Act out of those. Give God the finger and proceed with your life as a creator. There is so much to achieve once you really know yourself, but not for a purpose, and not by any law that is higher than the law of your skin and bones and flesh. Don't look so much for the strange magics of the world. You will find them and learn that they have no purpose - there is a lawful and reliable order to the world that is purposeful and simple. Your body is designed to discern it. 2) Are you shaping your world, or has evolution shaped your nervous system in the way that best enables it to predict and respond to real information. i.e. the branch in the dark doesn't look like a branch, but you know it is. Why? Because your brain draws on memory to ascertain reality. Cats are quite the opposite. So are babies. They respond to things on the level of pure sensation. That's why cats will chase around a laser or become transfixed by a moving shadow - they don't draw on previous experiences like we do to determine "is this really something I can catch?" Another good example: why does "attractive female" look like attractive female to you? This is the harmony of your various systems (reproductive, limbic, endocrine, occipital) co-operating and revealing the world as evolution would have you see it - why? Survival and propagation. That's all - find the joy in reality and all will be solved.

Curious if anyone has been to a rolfer or completed a 10-series? And what was your experience?

There are a whole bunch of nerves in your genitals, as well as a long list of hormones and neurotransmitters (oxytocin, dopamine, beta endorphins, prolactin) that are associated with wanting, having, and finishing intercourse. I don't know the meaning, but the neuromechanistics of sex and pleasure point to feelings of bonding, relaxation, achievement, and improved immune function. Generally you can trace the importance of these phenomena backwards through evolution and find that they ultimately serve our survival. Personally, I think God probably just likes to fuck and finally managed to create a form that can enjoy fucking as much as he/she/it does.

Let's have a chat, chums.

I feel dumber after reading this thread

I think you'd find the contrary true if you were seeing the world as they likely see it. Siddhis are not magic tricks for external show - I think of them more like beautiful offerings that bloom from the realm of the infinite. If you can witness them, they happen. If you can't witness them, who can say? Did a tree just fall in the woods? Whatever siddhis and powers masters have attained are a result of seamless, resistanceless relationship with wholeness, not a direct effect of a special kind of willing. There may be exceptions, but we live in the modern Western world. There are many things you'd consider magical if you visited certain remote tribes, and vice versa - the needs and tendencies of our consciousness have changed from whatever mystical boo-bah the ancients practiced. Something magical is always happening. When I was in Iran I was given incontrovertible evidence that there are mind-readers and matter-manipulators on our planet. People in high places... definitely rude, but the idea of "spiritually harmful" comes straight from the mouth of fear. The power is in your hands. More or less relevant than a tree? You know what I mean? More or less relevant than your eyeballs? Relevance is relative. You're implying there's something relevant to compare things to. Division and comparison is mind.

One of my favorite chants.

Yin and Yang These aren't mystical abstractions, but Observable characteristics and behaviors that the body manifests. Disengaged, shy, soft, tender, sensitive bodies that contract on contact are yin. Yin receives impressions. A Yin body allows events and other energies to easily impress their nature and character onto them. When yin mental illness strikes it's psychosis/neurosis. Yang mental illness is better classified as insanity. While yin gets impressed, yang does impressing. It impresses itself on the world. Yin quickly conforms to the environment, while yang leaves impressions on the envrionment. Really strong, conscious, aware yang energy can move and control a crowd of people. Yang bodies are engaged. The body muscles are "on," strong, firm, and deeply in contact with the world. Healthy engagement is different than pathological rigidity. In my observation many bodies have had their yang stolen from them through loss of personal authority or other painful conditions that cause the body to disengage from life. There are of course pathological and healthy versions of both. Pathological yang is macho, stiff, egotistical, pointlessly/shallowly, maybe redundantly involved in situations - always adding something, but never adding anything. Yin pathology may be an insecurity that seeks constant impressions, continuously pressing for others' opinions or judgments. Creating situations in which judgment or impressions can be imposed on them. Loss of self, inherent character, qualities of depression and anxiety. Less egotistical more 'egological' if I can make words up. Yang stands taller, yin slouched, yang says what's on its mind, yin does not. Organs and Spirit TCM thrives (imo) in its detailed understanding of the interface of spirit with the vital organs of the body. Elements of fragmented consciousness in the form of beliefs, memories, and other types of illness for which westerners have no name can be stored in the organs for decades, even lifetimes without ever being evoked into consciousness. Deep tcm healing can release experiences from the unconsciousness of the organs into the conscious orifices of the senses. My experience was that after a kidney liver heart tonification a taste that I hadn't tasted since the age of 4 to 6 appeared in my mouth. I considered that th is was a very old illness and remembered being quietly confounded by it as a child. Kidneys IME kidneys store deep creative intelligence. They're associated in TCM with water, saltiness, darkness. IMO they resonate with deep unconscious, primordial, and oceanic energies, which are their macrocosmic origins - these natural universal states are represented vibrationally and holographically through the function of the kidneys. The recent kidney-specific tonification I went through helped the kidney energy move upward into the upper central nervous system and evoked a wealth of creativity and visual-linguistic enhancement that I thought I had lost a few years back. Tcm theory says the kidney fills the spine and the brain. My observation is that kidney energy needs sufficient heat through proper activity to rise upward and fill the brain with its creative unconscious potentials. Kidneys are both fire and water. Water descends and fire rises. Insufficient heat to raise kidney energy results in heavy menstruation, seminal emissions and loss of essence through sexual activity. Kidneys also control the opening and closing of the lower orifices. The lower burner should be closed (indicating strong kidney qi) and heat should be applied to the lower burner to encourage kidney essence to rise. Lungs It's not that mysterious that lungs have to do with vocal self-expression, but in tcm the focus is mainly on pathology: phlegm, coughing, spitting up blood, invasion of pathogens, etc. In reality lungs are organs of music, joy, communication, connection, and many other things. They have tcm specific qualities that pertain to physiology such as misting the body with qi and regulating water, but I think these can overshadow more obvious qualities and conclusions anyone can come to with adequate introspection. The lungs can be organs of bliss or just function well enough to keep the body healthy. Together with the muscles, the spleen (which moves qi up and out), and the kidneys (which write lyrics) the lung is musical. Other random observations Chewed food is yang. Unchewed food is yin. Crunchy food is yang mushy food is yin. Walking through produce section one can tell the yin and yang qualities of everything. I was surprised to conclude that celery is predominantly a yang food (for me), in that it requires crunching - perhaps elementally it is more yin, but in terms of how it is physiologically and phenomenologically processed it has some very strong yang qualities. Yin and yang are not only about "energy" and thinking this way is blinding to one who wants understanding. There are extremely obvious layers and dimensions to duality that go overlooked when TCM is steeped too deeply in mystical thinking. Some very quiet, gentle, and small people can have tons of yang energy. You have to listen on a deeper level to people when you practice TCM. A yin-dominant body (small, frail, soft) can have tremdendous mental confidence and spiritual clarity, making them more yang in nature. You can usually tell if someone is yin or yang dominant just by putting a hand on their shoulder, back, or stomach. A lot of yang deficient people are too scared to get worked up in public environments. They privatize their yang energy, which contradicts yang nature. They don't like sweating in public, moving too much, or doing anything that indicates that they're alive and engaged in life. Digestion TCM has totally changed my digestive system. About 7-8 sessions into treatment for digestive/fatigue issues, they both completely vanished. I came home from a show one evening and had a craving for peanut butter and jelly. My body hasn't been able to handle bread or peanut butter for at least three years. But I rolled with the craving, bought some regular-ass white bread, peanut butter and jelly, and haven't had any problem at all digesting any of them. I basically never thought I'd be able to eat bread again. All we've done is tonify and remove stress from my spleen.

I was put on an extremely bitter herb formula by a TCM practitioner and here are my observations regarding the energetics of bitterness. Bitterness reverses the energetics of sweetness. Our bodies and tongues love sugar, but we consume far too much of it in the West. I'm observing that sweetness runs energetically toward the tongue (from the world, from foods), into the heart, and into the digestive system where it creates a sort of frenetic emotional activity - something like the basest possible kind of joy - it's an inbound energy for the body, and if we overuse sweets, it creates a sort of energetic groove that seeks perpetual refilling, like a canal that slurps hungrily at the world. Bitterness runs the opposite way. Our tongues reject it, they're hard to get down, and in some amazing healing way they neurologically affect our brains toward greater austerity and fulfillment. Bitter herbs have helped tremendously with my aggressive appetite and I'm actually coming to appreciate their flavor quite a lot. That's all.

Issue resolved. I appreciate the simple act of attention others gave this thread; the light of your eyes gave new perspective to the situation.

From a section on the wuxing (five phases): Graham seems to suggest that the wuxing operate on a correlative principle of resonance called "ganying," wherein like affects like (the way a Bb tuning fork will cause a Bb tuned string to vibrate). Moreover, he seems to suggest that the wuxing may be primordial in their influence - they may in fact be laws of creation itself, so as the phases change on an immaterial level their resonance can "make leaves green and move hearts to bounty," so to speak (this would be Wood phase). I previously thought the wuxing were primarily descriptive and prescriptive, and hadn't considered their cosmogonic origins. The above came as a shock to me, as it seems to suggest a "beyondness" of the laws that guide change that I hadn't considered before.

Thank you! Huge help in understanding.

What conclusions can you draw from your experience?

You know there's a lot of bullshit in business, as well. Our system is rife with redundant bureaucratic procedures that have no moral or ethical reason to exist - they could even represent the opposite (i.e. corruption). Refusing participation in the system for 'ethical' reasons could just be naivete or idealism. I've heard you say it yourself, Scott, in multiple contexts, that participation and engagement with world affairs can be as important or even more important to spiritual growth than achieving some sort of inner status or spiritual stature. It may be that the whole orchestra (society) is mistuned, but it plays in harmony with itself. The money-employment-economic-political system has its own way of functioning, and it's okay to play in tune with it - I think when politics and business begin violating natural laws, harming the environment, or hurting people, that that is the time to withdraw or resist due to ethics - then it is okay to play out of tune. I think your turning the job down sounds a little inflexible, maybe even dogmatically rigid. If it were me I would've taken a closer look at why the procedure was as stated (prev. exp. past year) and made a judgment as to whether stepping over the red tape in this case was inherently wrong or just a kind of judicial inconvenience.

I can hardly believe what I've just seen. And your exceptional insight into the co-ordination of Dao and De was a delicious supplement (and night cap). Thank you.

Everyone has values that they hold. Some are just for show. They are the ego's unconscious way of denying shadow. Others are for real growth. They are the ego's conscious way of denying shadow. Were your values just for show, you'd have taken the deal. Consciousness of this sort is a muscle. I think that by exercising it in this event you've sent feedback to yourself and others that will reinforce and reify your character structure, giving you greater presence, confidence, and charisma as a future leader/teacher/healer. It may be a temporary setback for you financially and may have even deprived you of an opportunity for hands-on learning. Additionally you may only ultimately guess at the net-consequence of your decision. Questions to consider: Are you swelling with pride? Filled with regret? Then maybe there was no good reason for you to uphold your values - your longing for identity and material satisfaction are still too strong. Your real values lie elsewhere and you must take an integral perspective to your humanity to assimilate and experience the good and bad together with consciousness. Alternately, are you equanimous? Backed by an inner certitude in your path, your values, and decision? Then you have claimed your integrity and will beam. You will be effortlessly distinguished when the time comes. I do think committing to this sort of spiritual practice that you've just described unbinds you from material dependencies. It may even inadvertently bring you greater material wealth in the future. However, only you can determine if you're upholding your spiritual values because you have introjected some kind of moral conduct system from your environment (aka having a stick up your ass) or if you've generated your principles and values from within. Which master are you serving? An abstract moral authority, or your inner self?

Thanks. Big help.

It sounds to me you're describing what Dr Chang identifies as the Buddhist response to life. There is certainly a place for withdrawal - if you feel the world is milking you of your essence, like some kind of vampire, then perhaps you have (a) not withdrawn enough/claimed enough of your own energy, or ( are misperceiving the natural balance of give-and-take in your life, or © identifying with the introjected pathological elements of society. You should not feel that the world is stealing from you, but that you are willfully (not willingly, which has an aura of submission) giving, due to the natural abundance of genuine value you hold within yourself, which is a matter of correct self-esteem. It also gives back (and you must receive), creating and supporting a state of harmony and wellness that suffuses your life (the universe) and every thing / everybody in it. In my personal opinion, you are right about the rat race and even spiritual pursuits, and that you should therefore tread lightly and confidently in the world so as not to be pulled on by negative forces. But become the change that YOU need. If you need to turn off the lights and sit in the darkness of pre-consciousness, do so - there are yin/yang there, as well, only subtler and less manifest.

Here are some general principles and theoretical extrapolations I'm collecting about the Kidney in TCM: Kidney stores pre-natal essence and is replenished and supported by post-natal essence (derived from food and air). It is the foundation of the three treasures (Jing, Qi, and Shen). Kidney assists in deep breathing. Shallow breathing is indicative of Kidney weakness. Strong kidneys should "grasp" Qi inhaled through the lungs, pulling it down into the lower Jiao (Lower Burner) Kidney's "grasping" function is evidenced in other ways. It holds in the head hair. It is related to memory (I assume this applies both to long-term memory and ancestral [epigenetic] memory). Kidneys open (flower) into the ears. I believe this means the Kidneys have a connection to the outside world through the ears. They "listen." Weak Kidney should theoretically result in difficulty listening to and retaining information. Kidneys should "grasp" sound and information through the ears and retain it. Strong Kidneys can retain information (memory) received auricularly. Kidneys are strongly affected by fear and shock. They control the opening-closing function of the urethra and anus. When people "nearly shit their pants," or have a strong urge to pee before an important event, this is fear affecting the Kidney's holding function. Kidneys are therefore associated also with trust, faith, the ability to rely on others, the ability to move with life, to survive, grow, and self-actualize. Spiritually, the Kidneys house the Zhi (Will-Power). Kidneys (and the bladder) are the organs of the Water element, which is black in color and associated with the Winter season. Winter is dark, desolate, perhaps scarce in resources. May represent the dark night of the soul - the necessary movement toward stillness and nothingness, and the associated fear, uncertainty, and indirection that can result. Kidneys produce marrow, which produces Blood. Kidneys should be protected, respected, and nurtured, as they pertain to growth, development, aging, and physical and psychological changes that depend on time.