vonkrankenhaus

Tao is not a thing, place, or substance. Tao is not physical, and not spirit. "Tao" means "Way" - like "the way apples fall" or "the way to make a deal". "Pure" Tao is a strange idea, but it could mean not adding any ideas or associations or assumptions. Like thinking Tao could even BE "pure" or "impure". As it happens, due to the Way happenings go, something appeared. That "some-thing", that "thing" has polarity - existence/non-existence, up/down, left/right, etc. This is "YinYang" - "Polarity" and the Movements of Polarity. This Movement is "Qi" - the movements between the poles of any polarity. So there is the basics of "Tao", "YinYang", and "Qi". - VonKrankenhaus

YinYang is study of the interactions of polarities. Yin and Yang categorizations classify the polarities. All polarities are complimentary and also antagonistic. This is not "dividing things in two". It is seeing the Dynamic Polarities in Oneness. It is recognizing the Polarity in and of all things. Qi is the Movement between relative potentials of YinYang at any given point on any spectrum of matter or energy. So - Change. Qi is not a substance. Yin and Yang are not substances. And Wu Xing (5 phases) is also - not about the transformation of material substances, and not about metaphysical ideas, and not a description of "forces". - VonKrankenhaus

At the extremes there is reversal. This is how we can explain freezing & expansion of water, for example. - VonKrankenhaus

Yin: Dark, Stasis, Death Yang: Light, Movement, Life Most things can be categorized using those cognates. So, among phenomena, one that is more active is more Yang than a less active phenomena, and one that is less active is more Yin than a more active one. In terms of growth, of people, plants, etc - one that is growing or moving faster is more Yang. One that is growing or moving less is more Yin. And the one that exhibits more growth than structure is Yang (Bamboo). One that exhibits more structure than growth is Yin (Oak tree). Light is activity - "light waves" - Yang. Dark is absence of this activity - Yin. - VonKrankenhaus

It's even more integrated than that. One HAS two - Each one HAS an Up/Down, Left/Right, and other Polarities. One never "divides" or "bifurcates" to "produce" (like a factory) Two. If One "Rock" appears, it will not "divide" into "Two Rocks". The One Rock HAS: existence/nonexistence, up/down, top/bottom, etc, etc. HAS "Two". Between the "Two" of any Polarity, Movement happens. Change. TaijiTu shows this. -VonKrankenhaus

At one level of YinYang thinking, we are using our Mind to dissect reality without any external equipment. For example, we see an object - a "bucket". In front of us is One unified bucket. But in our Mind we see instantly - YinYang - up/down, inside/outside, top/bottom, was/becomes, and many other polarities. Still, in front of us is One bucket. We have dissected the bucket into many polarities while never taking our eyes off of its inherent and obvious Unity and Singular Presence. YinYang is seeing the interactions of any Polarity. Movement between the relative poles of any polarity is Qi. -VonKrankenhaus

Yes. And further, even the existence of Oneness immediately means that its opposite exists. That is the whole point. That is YinYang. -VonKrankenhaus

YinYang is the simultaneous discernment of Polarity and the movements of Polarity. Appearance of the "One" is a movement or change from "No-thing" to "Some-thing". The arising of any One thing "produces" Two - up/down, left/right, outside/inside, and so on. Complimentary/opposite aspects. One Humanity has Male/Female. No pure "dualism" or straight "dialectic". No split. Complimentary Opposite aspects of One. This is "dualistic monism". Qi is just Movement between the relative poles of any polarity - "vibration", and "energy". If no Polarity, no Qi. If no Polarity, no way to compare any thing, no aspects. And no Movement. -VonKrankenhaus

"If you follow the present-day world, you will turn your back on the Way; if you would not turn your back on the Way, do not follow the world" Takuan Solo -VonKrankenhaus

The faces - what we are seeing is: Jing/Qi/Shen. The organs functioning - moving, stuck, etc. And the nerves - modern people show cranial nerve damage - eye looking off-center, tilted smile, parts of face not moving the same as the rest. So - face diagnosis. A good subject to study. -VonKrankenhaus

You learning Hung Gar? Who is your teacher and what school? Just interested. I also have experience with Hung Gar Kuen a long time ago. -VonKrankenhaus

This is basic YinYang. "Tao produces One, One produces Two,," - Means that "the way things go", some Thing appears. That "thing" (One) already and inherently HAS polarity - an up/down, inside/outside, beginning/ending, and so on. And there is no "only Yin" or "only Yang". This is your two sticks, or a coin that cannot have only head side or tail side, but is always "One" coin. ANY "thing" that arises or appears HAS polarity. In this sense, however, we can see that Polarity is actually showing Unity. - VonKrankenhaus

"Light" is vibration. Vibration means "two" or "Polarity" - in order for there to be any wave, wave length, amplitude, or period. Without Polarity there can be no Light. Where does Polarity come from? - VonKrankenhaus

Polytheism is religion of the unconscious (right brain). Monotheism is religion of consciousness (left brain). Monotheism is a product of literacy and literate alpha-betic causality (left brain). -VonKrankenhaus

No. Taoism is YinYang understanding. Which means sorrow is changing into happy, up is going down, and right is turning wrong. So we accept the One and see how things interact and change. Effort spent on Good are also building Bad at the same pace. Taoism sees Good and Bad are only just a Polarity of One thing - seeing unity via discerning dualism. Like a tossed coin - a Taoist catches the whole coin, and doesn't bother trying to catch only one "Good" or "Bad" side of the coin - which is impossible even as so many try. -VonKrankenhaus

"Food" is a condensed form of the overall Environment that we consume in an interface wherein that external and our internal environments make balance and become One "again". Explaining the "again" part: This is due to the illusion of our existence as somehow separate from our Environment. In this way, we are a manifestation of our Environment and there is no actual "difference" between these. Modern way is to wreck this relationship in every way - physical, psychological, and so on, until humans are dependent on proprietary synthetic technology and cannot integrate with their source directly. -VonKrankenhaus

He wrote that because Dao is not a thing to speak of in the first place. It is not a "thing". It means "Way" - like "the way home". The "Way" is not a road and does not go to a destination. It's like "the way to make a mess". The "way to make a mess" is not a physical "thing". But we can talk about it for convenience. If we tried to weigh this "way", for example, that wouldn't make sense. Because it doesn't "weigh". -VonKrankenhaus

Not so much that I didn't write a new "definition" of it: "Qi is movement arising from the relative potentials of YinYang at any given point on any spectrum of matter or energy" Movement between poles of any complimentary/antagonistic polarity - could be movement of heat, "gravity", water, any kind of electromagnetic energy, social phenomena, seasons, evolution, and so on. This is why so many sources list so many "kinds of qi". In the human body there are many polarities and many movements are happening. This is one reason ancient systems used more "acupuncture channels" than modern - they understood and knew how to have effect across more polarities than we use today. Meanwhile, scientists are looking for qi as some kind of universal fluid or something running through what they decided must be like plumbing pipes in the body. All qigong and gongfu systems are developed by discerning and exploiting (in various ways) bodily and energetic polarities. -VonKrankenhaus

But, as you agree, this is all happening at once, right now. So our remembrances and our projections are things we currently do, no matter what or "when" they refer to. Every time we do them, we are doing them right then. -VonKrankenhaus

At this point in what you describe, the past is just currently remembered, a memory. And the future is just a mental projection, a currently conceived idea. So - IS there really a past and a future? And, if there are - aren't they actually just happening right now? You cannot show us the "past", nor the "future" if we ask you for them. You can only show us things that "refer" to them. You can say they "did" exist, or "will" exist - but not that they actually DO exist. You can "assume" the concept of causality would explain that there "had to have been" a past, and "should be" a future. But those are just assumptions - "ideas". Do you really know from actual experience, and not assumption, that there was in fact a time when you didn't exist? -VonKrankenhaus

Yes, "atheists" use this article in online arguments about "religion". People assume the article is about "whether Jesus existed or not", etc. But do you have an article that debunks the history and politics discussed in that Mithras article? -VonKrankenhaus

We say that "Qi is movement arising from the relative potentials of YinYang at any given point on any spectrum of matter or energy". No polarity = no "Qi". Most people today assume Qi is some kind of substance. Perhaps a universal substance that pervades everything, or even a specific substance that changes into other substances. "Scientists" have been looking for this "substance" called "Qi" and cannot find it. Instead, they find various ordinary things they can measure, like heat, metabolic activity, bio-electricity, and so on. Also, "scientists" have been looking all over human body for "acupuncture channels" or "meridians" that qi is supposed (they interpret) to flow through - something like water running in a water pipe. They will not find that. Because Qi is just a function of polarity. Not a substance, not a part of the body, not solid, liquid, or gas. Human body has many polarities - up/down, inside/outside, orthosympathetic/parasympathetic, various electrical polarities, chemical polarities, etc. Many substances and parts of body are involved in these polarities - not just one. -VonKrankenhaus

Qi is movement arising with any polarity. "Powerful" just means big polarity is there. If you mean the kind of bodily polarities that we work (gong) to generate added biological strength such that, for example, a person could generate more heat, or more bio-electricity, or a different kind of metabolic reaction, control heart activity, and thing like that, these polarities are not mainly worked or developed by fasting and meditating in the dark. If you want to develop something like "ESP", receive and generate images, etc - then fasting and cave training can have direct effect. Darkness training, in particular - but this is not "building qi" like you maybe think. It's for something a bit different. If you are interested in Qi - can you write what you think "qi" is, so we are on the same page? -VonKrankenhaus

If One is Dao, then Dao cannot produce One. They would be "same", no distinction. Dao is the WAY that any thing appears. One is what appears, and Two are its aspects. Aspects are complimentary opposites, and so produce movement and change. We call that "Qi". The change isn't merely electromagnetic. It can be change of heat, movement of water, or day and night - anything, any movement between any polarities. Some call that movement "forces" - but this leads to a mistake where a "force" is taken to be a "thing". They see lists of "kinds of qi", and also Order of Qi, such as Big Qi, Small Qi, etc - as per Fu Hsi, or interaction of qi as in King Wen arrangement. None of these work if we interpret "Qi" as merely or only "electromagnetism". Or if qi is some kind of mediating substance, like a fluid in thermodynamics. Do Day and Night depend on a fluid for some kind of transference of matter between one and the other? No. Day is not a physical object, nor is Night. They are just one of the polarities we see on One rotating Earth by its very existence. -VonKrankenhaus

One issue is that you appear to be assuming this is about the appearance of "things". As if we could say "One potato arose, and from that, two potatoes arose,," This isn't about a thing like a potato. I Ching is "book of changes", not "book of things" - and although we grasp the emergence of "things" by such study, we are really studying how changes happen, including the change from Nothing to Something. Modern physics is same way - they start out looking for "things", but they end up seeing "illogical" phenomena like "non-locality" and the "observer effect", etc, etc. Neils Bohr did study physics well, and then put the taijitu on his coat-of-arms, and not without reason. Because physics is looking for the Taoism (yes, of Fu Hsi and King Wen) that describes how change universally occurs, and this because the physical-seeking concepts and explanations of materialistic science had run into Reality. Again - the "One" is not referring to an item. If it did, we would be faced with extreme irrationality if that first "One" was a "single item", a "thing", and had been, for example, a peanut. Such that from "Peanut" comes "Two", and so forth?! That's what we are looking at if "One" is a particular object or thing. Silly. But that's how many western people approach this. Even physics finds dual "particle/wave" conception of matter - (light being particle and also wave, so they're not even as sure as you with your "apple"!). And "Dao" is not a "place" or "thing" or any kind of physical object, and this is why the Dao that can be spoken of is not the true Dao. "Silliness" is also not a physical object. But I hope all people can still appreciate it! -VonKrankenhaus