Nerien

"An act of benevolence is responded to with an act of nut butter." Or something like that....

Yes, wildly overcomplicating things. The real practice is like dropping a heavy load. You'd do it naturally, and in an instant, if you weren't so attached to all the preferences and junk you've accumulated. But you won't - so all these systems and practices are just a way of tricking your overly complicated and self-important mind into doing it despite itself. Give up on this life. Practice compassion.

Wrong. Shin is the symbol for spirit. It partakes of fire like a house contains wood, but a house made of wood is not the same as the concept of wood. It rules fire, but since when were the ruler and the ruled the same thing? Har! Observe. See those three Yods at the top? Those are the flames. Yod = Fire. This is really basic QBL stuff.

This is incorrect. Shin is spirit. The triple crown of fire. I (Yod) = Fire H (Heh) = Water V (Vav) = Air H (Heh, final) = Earth Fun fact! Leonard Nimoy's hand sign for "Live Long and Prosper" was ripped off a Jewish Orthodox representation of Shin he saw during a ritual as a kid.

Pure Yang cannot be seen, displayed or even properly symbolized. If it were to partake of Yin in the slightest it would not be pure. Yin is manifestation & limitation. Pure Yang isn't bound by the temporal limits of time or space. It doesn't manifest. It is the cause of manifestion. It can only exist within time and space once trapped or encapsulated in Yin. This is why in the I-Ching, Yin is 2 and 'Yang' is 3. The 'Yang' represented in the I-Ching is really the state of humanity. Yang trapped within Yin (1+2=3). The 1 is Pure Yang and is never used on its own. How could it be? It is Unity rather than Dualism and is indescribable and immutable. Therefore, its presence is merely alluded to. Also, you can have a one sided coin. It merely has to exist in two-dimensional space rather than three-dimensional space.

You've all probably lost more energy upsetting yourselves over this than you would have by enjoying an good orgy... A student is like a patient and a Master like a doctor. You have a state. Not everyone's state is the same. Hence everyone gets a different prescription. There's no one magic practice or pill or method. What works for one person will harm another. What works in one stage falls flat in the next. The form stays the same, but the feeling changes. Don't fall in love with your medicine! Hard and fast rules are for Novices. Guidelines are for Adepts. Masters are not bound by such things.

I'll second this. To the letter.

Yup. The rest of us are left with having to practice to get back into that state. The doing before not-doing.

Oh, I wasn't trying to be too mystical about it actually. I'm of the opinion that such natural people don't 'lock things down'. They just are. They don't do things for reasons. There's nowhere to go. Reasons and linear, or 'goal oriented', thinking is very artificial. We're all taught to do things 'because'. Some people just shrug this off. It doesn't take. They're like natural saints. It doesn't seem to matter if they've been left to themselves or been brought up as a strict fundementalist. They stay in the moment, rather than being stuck in the 'past' or craving something in the 'future'. You're not a product of civilization, you're a product of millions of years of evolution. However, you've been programmed by artificial constructs in civilization that distort reality. Here's an example: One: when the five colors confuse the eye and cause the eyesight to be unclear. Like Nietzsche has said - "We are all better artists than we realize.". Look at something nearby that is red. Is that red? Really? Because it's not. The 'natural' human just looks at it without labelling. The programmed human recalls the learned colour from memory and barely looks at the actual object - that could be, and most likely is, a completely unique colour that just so happens to be close to what you consider 'red' to be. We get trapped within the boxes of our own mental constructs when all we do is think and recall and forget to actually look at it without preference or prejudice.

I practiced. Yay! Oh happy day.

How would you tell the difference? Maybe you meet such people each and every day.

I love the re-occuring use of tree imagery. Robber Chih might be as smart and disciplined as a sage, and even kind and benevolent to his own, but he's still a product of civilization. He's artificial in the strict sense of the word meaning 'man-made'.

Yes, it's all too easy to fall in love with your medicine. I try to think of it as soap I'm applying to dirt. At the end of the process I'd like to be washed clean of both of them.

Oh! My bad. I thought you were doing this. This is a historical discussion, I now see. I'm an idiot.

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In my mind, we don't need to know much about the Robber, because we are already told that he 'died for gain'. This is not virtue. Perhaps if he'd been a robber who didn't care about gain, but merely enjoyed robbing because in doing so he was being himself, that he would be truly virtuous and be with the Tao. The first two lose all they have of value in their care because they're distracted with trivial things, the second two lose their lives because they had unnatural goals and ideals. Reputation and gain as a goal corrupts and leads to ruin. Reputation and gain as a side effect of being sincere and yourself does not. You don't care to gain or lose these things.

I'd surmise what Zhuangzi was trying to say was that both men died by spending their vitality (thier life) on the illusions of material gain and reputation. So why is one judged to be superior to the other? Both waste their human potential on things that do not truly serve them. What good is bravery, righteousness, wisdom, and benevolence if you misspend the proceeds? Better that you did nothing at all.

Hey there, Just stopping in for a looksee, maybe even a conversation. Who knows? My interests are mainly yoga, taijiquan, & neigong. Thanks for having me! -N