Geof Nanto

Your response surprises me. How do you infer that quotation implies "life is supposed to suck"?

“The will needs obstacles in order to exercise its power; when it is never thwarted, when no effort is needed to achieve one’s desires, because one has placed one’s desires only in the things that can be obtained by stretching out one’s hand, the will grows impotent. If you walk on a level all the time the muscles you need to climb a mountain will entropy.” (from The Lotus Eater by W Somerset Maugham)

“The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him. To ride their horses and take away their possessions, to see the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed with tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters in his arms.” Genghis Khan

@ Wayfarer. I liked reading your comments in that you speak with the clarity of experience, however I see nothing wrong with the notion of Daoism and Buddhism as therapy. Indeed, Carl Jung described the world's religions as the great therapeutic systems of the world. And the traditional Daoist methods of improving basic health are fundamental to the whole body approach of Daoism.

I also have reservations about smoothies. I hesitate to express them though because I support anyone who puts thought and effort into their diet. Considering how much junk food the average person consumes, it can be a tad hypercritical to dwell too much on the finer points of relatively healthy food choices. I'm also wary of creating unwarranted fear of foods that have formed a part of traditional diets over long periods of time. That said, my basic problem with smoothies is exactly that they allow the consummation of massive amounts of fruits and vegetables in one concentrated drink, with very little work on the part of the digestion. To my mind it's important to eat foods as staples that need chewing and require our bodies to do the normal work of digestion. Just like the rest of our bodies, our digestive system needs to do appropriate amounts of work to stay healthy. And do we need massive amounts of nutrients in concentrated forms on a regular basis? That's never been a part of traditional diets. Just because a small amount of something is good doesn't mean a larger amount is better, in fact usually quite the contrary. Sure, I can see benefits in appropriate circumstances, but the overconsumption of such foods creates the potential for many problems of which the specific types that VonKrankenhaus outlines above are but a few.

Carl Jung describes the building of his house at Bollingen where he spent months at a time living as simply as possible, without electricity or running water....... "Gradually, through my scientific work, I was able to put my fantasies and the contents of the unconscious on a solid footing. Words and paper, however, did not seem real enough to me; something more was needed. I had to achieve a kind of representation in stone of my innermost thoughts and of the knowledge I had acquired. Or, to put it another way, I had to make a confession of faith in stone. That was the beginning of the "Tower," the house which I built for myself at Bollingen. It was settled from the start that I would build near the water. I had always been curiously drawn by the scenic charm of the upper lake of Zurich, and so in 1922 I bought some land in Bollingen. It is situated in the area of St. Meinrad and is old church land, having formerly belonged to the monastery of St. Gall. At first I did not plan a proper house, but merely a kind of primitive one-storey dwelling. It was to be a round structure with a hearth in the centre and bunks along the walls. I more or less had in mind an African hut where the fire, ringed by a few stones, burns in the middle, and the whole life of the family revolves round this centre. Primitive huts concretise an idea of wholeness, a familial wholeness in which all sorts of small domestic animals likewise participate. But I altered the plan even during the first stages of building, for I felt it was too primitive. I realised it would have to be a regular two-storey house, not a mere hut crouched on the ground. So in 1923 the first round house was built, and when it was finished I saw that it had become a suitable dwelling tower. The feeling of repose and renewal that I had in this tower was intense from the start. It represented for me the maternal hearth. But I became increasingly aware that it did not yet express everything that needed saying, that something was still lacking. And so, four years later, in 1927, the central structure was added, with a tower-like annex. After some time had passed — again the interval was four years — I once more had a feeling of incompleteness. The building still seemed too primitive to me, and so in 1931 the tower-like annex was extended. I wanted a room in this tower where I could exist for myself alone. I had in mind what I had seen in Indian houses, in which there is usually an area —though it may be only a corner of a room separated off by a curtain — to which the inhabitants can withdraw. There they meditate for perhaps a quarter or half an hour, or do yoga exercises. Such an area of retirement is essential in India, where people live crowded very close together. In my retiring room I am myself. I keep the key with me all the time; no one else is allowed in there except with my permission. In the course of the years I have done paintings on the walls, and so have expressed all those things which have carried me out of time into seclusion, out of the present into timelessness. Thus the second tower became for me a place of spiritual concentration. In 1935, the desire arose in me for a piece of fenced-in land. I needed a larger space that would stand open to the sky and to nature. And so — once again after an interval of four years — I added a courtyard and a loggia by the lake, which formed a fourth element that was separated from the unitary threeness of the house. Thus a quaternity had arisen, four different parts of the building, and, moreover, in the course of twelve years. After my wife's death in 1955, I felt an inner obligation to become what I myself am. To put it in the language of the Bollingen house, I suddenly realised that the small central section which crouched so low, so hidden, was myself! I could no longer hide myself behind the "maternal" and the "spiritual" towers. So, in that same year, I added an upper storey to this section, which represents myself, or my ego-personality. Earlier, I would not have been able to do this; I would have regarded it as presumptuous self-emphasis. Now it signified an extension of consciousness achieved in old age. With that the building was complete." “We rush impetuously into novelty, driven by a mounting sense of insufficiency, dissatisfaction, and restlessness. We no longer live on what we have, but on promises, no longer in the light of the present day, but in the darkness of the future, which, we expect, will at last bring the proper sunrise. We refuse to recognize that everything better is purchased at the price of something worse; that, for example, the hope of greater freedom is canceled out by increased enslavement to the state, not to speak of the terrible perils to which the most brilliant discoveries of science expose us......the new methods or gadgets, are of course impressive at first, but in the long run they are dubious and in any case dearly paid for. They by no means increase the contentment or happiness of people on the whole. Mostly they are deceptive sweetenings of existence, like speedier communications which unpleasantly accelerate the tempo of life and leave us with less time than ever before.”

Electronic Heroin: internet addiction in China and the truth about its brutal “cures” “The accessibility of the Internet is always a double-edged sword for not only providing convenient access to information but also creating an entirely new addiction: Internet addiction disorder (IAD). This condition has caused serious trouble for netizens of all ages it has impaired social interaction, created financial debt and caused academic failure and in China there are few more terrifying things than academic failure. This is the main reason why IAD has provoked extensive concerns in China, where parents care so much about how many A’s their child can get on their grade sheet. After persuasions and violence fails, parents ironically turn to the almighty Internet itself, hoping for a solid answer. But simple research online leads to pages of advertisements for “Internet addiction camps.” These camps are an expensive last resort for many parents who have no idea how to deal with their child’s growing addiction. The documentary Web Junkie gives us a peek to one of the most famous of these camps, China Youth Psychology Development Base, located in Beijing. It’s a tough movie to watch and shows the extent that Chinese parents and doctors are willing to go to cure this addiction to ‘electronic heroin.’ ” From http://haogamers.com/blog/2015/06/30/electronic-heroin-internet-addiction-in-china-and-the-truth-about-its-brutal-cures/ Also….. Internet-addicted South Korean children sent to digital detox boot camp South Korea has the highest rate of internet addiction in the world and it is increasingly the country's children who are spending every waking moment immersed in fantasy role play or gaming. The government sees it as a national health crisis and is now taking drastic measures to help the country’s 2 million addicts. They have set up a network of boot camps across the nation to offer the kids of Korea a digital detox. In the remote and pristine mountains of South Korea, about as far away as one can get from the country's high-tech cities, teenage internet addicts are turning up for a 12-day boot camp. Kyle Won's addiction is out of control. He spends 10 hours a day on the internet. He was top of his class and now he has dropped out of his final year of high school. His mother Han Jin Sook brought him to the camp as a last resort. "He's become aggressive and angry and stressed towards people. He used to listen to us but now he doesn't," she said. Kyle's smartphone is taken away, locked up for safekeeping and then it is goodbye to his parents and to cyberspace. "I'm really worried because I won't have my phone for 12 days but I trust other things will fill my time," he said. About a dozen teenage boys live, eat, sleep at the camp and every day starts with exercises. At first the councillors encourage human interaction to get them socialising again; for many the only friends they have had are online. Kyle, 18, said this was a problem for him. "I have relationships on the internet and a real distance has grown with my personalised friends and I know it's not good," he said. One of the basic ideas at the camp is to rebuild connections back to the real world and weaken ties to the virtual one to reclaim a childhood lost to the computer. The job of the councillors here is to get the kids to think about a future beyond the smartphone or iPad; to show them other possibilities and ultimately to try and bring back dreams and hopes that have been buried by their addictions. Councillor Shim Yong Chool said what the boys learned at camp had to be applied back in the home environment if treatment was to be successful. "We teach them methods to self-manage their emotions and the desire to use the internet so they can continue to use them when they go back home," Shim said. The boys also undergo intense one-on-one counselling to work out any underlying causes of addiction like family conflicts or personality issues. One in every 10 South Korean child an addict South Korean psychiatrists are urging more action as they are finding evidence too much screen time is damaging developing brains. Professor Kang Seak Young from Dankook University said the addiction was damaging critical thinking. "It effects the frontal lobes which are important for critical analysis," Kang said. "Reading a book where one is guessing what happens in the story next shows activity in frontal lobes but playing internet games shows no activity." The camp may not offer a cure but after just two days Kyle said it was helping. "It's a step forward, I'm living without the internet and I do have an expectation, through the group exercises and counselling, that when I go home it will have an impact and I won't use the internet as much," he said. South Korea is most wired nation on Earth. Virtually every home is connected with cheap high-speed broadband. But it does have a cost — one on 10 kids are addicts — so the country is now learning how to manage and moderate its high-tech future. (from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-13/south-korean-children-seek-help-at-digital-detox-boot-camp/6769766 ) And from the medical profession……. Internet addiction: a 21st century epidemic? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972229/

An account of the recent Internal Alchemy course at Five Immortals Temple..... "In the past, Li Shifu did not want to teach such a subject. Inner Alchemy is the highest Gong of Daoism, truly sublime and mysterious, a path of cultivation to reach immortality and transform the physical body, that’s requires a very high level of virtue and a special destiny. He would sometimes mention it to his students, but never did he clearly teach it, because he considered it was too high. However, since he started teaching western students, he noticed that some of them would come up with the same sort of questions about practices involving the sexual union of man and woman under the name of Inner Alchemy. If at first he did not pay too much attention to what he calls a small Dao or a crooked path, over time he started to notice that these questions were being raised repeatedly. He soon found out that some teachers and some so-called Daoist organizations in the West were spreading these teachings under the name of Inner Alchemy. Profoundly baffled, and seeing that this could only mislead a lot of sincere seekers, inciting them to walk down a crooked path, sometimes to the point of harming their own body, he decided to open the Inner Alchemy course so as to provide a guiding lamp, a direction to those seekers in search of information, so that the Upright Dao of the Way of the Elixir (Dan Dao) could not be misinterpreted for the mere sexual practices happening in society. For this first course, 22 students were attending, representing 12 nationalities : Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Sweden, Ireland, England, Bulgaria, Portugal, Australia, America, and Mexico." For the full account see http://fiveimmortals.com/dan-dao/ (I have posted this link out of general interest. I am neither endorsing or not endorsing the content of the course.)

Daoist Morning Scripture as recited at Wudang Five Immortals Temple.

My purpose in entering this discussion was to post some information about the traditional diet of Aboriginal Australians - an ancient and still surviving culture I've experienced first-hand. My post above yours has information on seed cakes made from crushing seeds into dough. The seeds used were from grasses or acacia trees; their usage nothing like the spices you mention from your pantry. I've included an article below with more information. However it seems pointless arguing about diet on this level when the average diet is atrocious. After all, the OP is about soda addiction. And even though I live in a semi-wilderness area, surrounded by wildlife, I'm not about to embark on a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Damper Seed Damper, also known as bush bread or seedcake, is a European term that refers to the bread made by Australian Aborigines for many thousands of years by crushing a variety of native seeds, and sometimes nuts and roots, into a dough and then baking the dough in the coals of a fire. The bread is high in protein and carbohydrate and helped form part of a balanced traditional diet. Millstones for grinding seeds into flour have been discovered which have dated to be 50,000 years old. Although women living in remote communities may still bake damper, the arrival of pre-milled white flour has mostly replaced the use of ground native seeds. Sadly this, along with the introduction of white sugar, has contributed to health problems such as diabetes among Aboriginal people. Traditionally, bread-making, a labour intensive task, was a woman’s job and was generally carried out by several women at once. It involved collecting seasonal seeds, grain, legumes, roots or nuts, grinding these into a flour, then usually adding water to form a dough. Sometimes, as with Spinifex seeds, there would be enough moisture in the seeds to form the dough directly. Seeds varied depending on the time of year and the area in Australia in which the people lived. In Central Australia, native millet (Panicum decompositum; Panicum australianse) and Spinifex (Triodia) were commonly used. Wattleseed, from various species of Acacia, could also be used in the flour mix. Some seeds (such as the seed of acacia) need to be heated, hulled and then ground dry, while others (such as those of grasses) would be ground with water. Women harvested the fully ripe, dry seeds of the plant by beating the grass, or pod-laden trees in the case of wattleseed, with sticks to dislodge the seeds. Some species were eaten at the green stage and, when ground, would produce a juice at the side of the millstone, which was drunk directly. Acacia seed flour has recently gained popularity throughout Australia due to its high nutritional content, hardiness, availability, and low toxicity. Due to its low glycemic index it is also often incorporated into diabetic foods. In the Kimberley region of Western Australia, women observed that, after the dry season, many seeds would be gathered around the opening of harvester ants’ nests. The ants had effectively collected and husked the seed for them, and they were able to collect just the seed, making their job a lot easier. After allowing the grain to dry, they could begin to prepare the flour. Some other seeds used by aboriginal women for making dough are: Pigface (Portulaca oleracea), Prickly/Elegant wattle (Acacia victoriae), Mulga (Acacia aneura), Dead finish seed (Acacia tetragonophylla) and Bush bean (Rhyncharrhena linearis). Making the flour After the grain was collected, it needed to be winnowed, which was done using a coolamon, a multi-purpose wooden carrying vessel. Sometimes it needed to be winnowed several times. Once the grain was winnowed, it was ground using a millstone, to create flour. The flour was then mixed with water to make a dough and placed in hot ashes for baking, either into small buns, today referred to as johnny cakes, or a large loaf, known today as damper. The dough could also be eaten raw. Cooking was a good way to prepare the bread if the group was about to travel for some time. Bread could also be made from roots and corms of plants. In the Top End of Australia, people such as the Yolngu used the lotus root and wild taro. These were ground and then mixed to a paste to make bread. Water lily seed bread was also popular in the Top End. The two species of water lily used were Nelumbo nucifera and Nymphaea macrosperma. During the early part of the dry season, water lilies form an important part of the diet, with seed pods eaten raw or ground into paste. Women had expert knowledge of how to de-toxify certain plant foods. The seeds of the cycad palm, Cycas media, are highly carcinogenic when raw and require elaborate treatment including shelling, crushing, leaching in running water for up to five days, then cooking. After this they are made into small loaves, which can keep for a number of weeks. In Queensland, the people of the Mount Tamborine area used the Bunya Pine cone (bunya nut) endemic to the area, to make bread in this way. Janet Long Nakamarra, a Warlpiri artist from Willowra in Central Australia, describes Spinifex grass damper. “Spinifex grasses are long and yellow. People used to go out hunting and collect seeds from the spinifex. They put the seeds in the coolamon, then they clean (away) the dirt, sticks and grass. Once the seeds are clean, they put them on the grinding stone and grind them with a little water. They grind and grind until the seeds become very sticky and pasty. When the seeds (have) been ground then they put the damper seeds into a wooden dish and put coals on top. It takes a few hours until the damper seed is cooked. They then take the dish from the fire and prick the damper with the stick to see whether it is cooked or not. If the stick is dry they put the dish with the damper out to let it cool off. When the damper is cool then they cut the damper and eat it. The creator of the damper seeds (Ngurlu) was the crested pidgeon. It had to gather seeds and put them in a pile for people to collect. It also sang creation song of the seeds. The seeds are called ‘Lukarrara/Warripinyi’.” By: David Wroth, Japingka Gallery, 2015 (From http://www.japingka.com.au/articles/damper-seed/

Here's another reference for information about the consumption of grains and legumes by Australian Aborigines..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_bread "Bush bread, or seedcakes, refers to the bread made by Australian Aborigines for many thousands of years, by crushing seeds into a dough, after which it is baked. The bread was high in protein and carbohydrate, and helped form part of a balanced traditional diet. With the arrival of Europeans and pre-milled white flour, this bread-making process all but disappeared (although women were still recorded to be making seedcakes in Central Australia in the 1970s). The tradition of cooking bread in hot coals continues today. Bread-making was a woman's task. It was generally carried out by several women at once, due to its labour-intensive nature. It involved collecting seasonal grains, legumes, roots or nuts, and preparing these into flour and then dough, or directly into a dough."

As far as I'm concerned feel free to eat whatever you want. I know from years of trial and error what sort of foods work best for me. Grains and legumes are both seeds and seeds certainly play an important part in traditional diet. There is much worldwide evidence for this. For instance, Australian aborigines extensively harvested and ate the seeds and gum of Acacia trees, a legume. "Of the sixty or so species of Acacia in central Australia, Latz (1995) states that some 50% were, or still are, eaten by Aboriginal people and it is not only the seed which is consumed. Several species exude an edible sugary gum from wounds in the stem or branches which supplies a source of energy. Others are fed upon by insects which themselves secrete an edible substance while species such as A. kempeana are the host for various edible grubs often referred to by non-Aboriginal people as witchetty grubs." (From the paper "Acacia in Australia: Ethnobotany and Potential Food Crop" )

Here is some information on traditional diet of Australian Aborigines living in arid Central Australia and in the tropical northern Australian coastal regions. Their cultural heritage stretches back at least 30,000 years and the traditional way of life is maintained by some. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian_food_groups ) From the Yolngu people of northern Australia..... The old people would talk about the need to eat from both murŋyan' (plant or vegetable food) and gonyil (meat, shellfish, eggs) food groups and the need to supplement their diet with gapu (fresh water). While this balance was maintained, the people knew they were eating correctly. When the men would come back from the magpie goose hunt, they would be craving murnyaŋ foods after having eaten so much meat and eggs. Meanwhile, the women, children and old people back in the camps would be looking forward to gonyil, magpie goose meat and eggs, after eating so much murnyaŋ'.

Yes, I like all these too. My regular legumes are pinto beans and black turtle beans (during cold weather); black-eyed beans and French Puy lentils (milder weather); yellow split peas and green lentils (hot weather).

Your comment on our alienation from nature as food reminded me of this passage from D H Lawrence's The Fox..... When you really go out to get a deer, you gather yourself together, you coil yourself inside yourself, and you advance secretly, before dawn, into the mountains. It is not so much what you do, when you go out hunting, as how you feel. You have to be subtle and cunning and absolutely fatally ready. It becomes like a fate. Your own fate overtakes and determines the fate of the deer you are hunting. First of all, even before you come in sight of your quarry, there is a strange battle, like mesmerism. Your own soul, as a hunter, has gone out to fasten on the soul of the deer, even before you see any deer. And the soul of the deer fights to escape. Even before the deer has any wind of you, it is so. It is a subtle, profound battle of wills which takes place in the invisible. And it is a battle never finished till your bullet goes home. When you are REALLY worked up to the true pitch, and you come at last into range, you don't then aim as you do when you are firing at a bottle. It is your own WILL which carries the bullet into the heart of your quarry. The bullet's flight home is a sheer projection of your own fate into the fate of the deer. It happens like a supreme wish, a supreme act of volition, not as a dodge of cleverness.

For me the book is a masterful portrayal of aspects of the Dao that are the antithesis of Daoism...... "[Judge Holden said], Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent. He looked about at the dark forest in which they were bivouacked. He nodded toward the specimens he’d collected. These anonymous creatures, he said, may seem little or nothing in the world. Yet the smallest crumb can devour us. Any smallest thing beneath yon rock out of men’s knowing. Only nature can enslave man and only when the existence of each last entity is routed out and made to stand naked before him will he be properly suzerain of the earth… The judge placed his hands on the ground. He looked at his inquisitor. This is my claim, he said. And yet everywhere upon it are pockets of autonomous life. Autonomous. In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation. Toadvine sat with his boots crossed before the fire. No man can acquaint himself with everything on this earth, he said. The judge tilted his great head. The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate." (pp189-90)

There's no gun ban in Australia, but the laws on gun ownership were considerably tightened after a mass shooting in 1996. Since that time studies have revealed no statistically significant change in gun violence. The level of gun violence in Australia is relatively low, but not as low as the UK. "The American National Rifle Association claimed in 2000 that violent crimes had increased in Australia since the introduction of new laws. The Australian federal Attorney General accused the NRA of falsifying government statistics and urged the NRA to 'remove any reference to Australia' from its website." (from Wikipedia)

I live in a pole framed, timber clad cabin in a semi-wilderness area. There's no grid electricity here; solar panels and batteries. Rainwater tanks for water. My web connection is via satellite. My cabin is a tad bigger than 140 sq ft though. It's about 7 metres square with a sleeping loft over about a third of it. It's the most comfortable house I've ever lived in. I share it with geckos and microbats. It's quiet here, at least as far as human activity is concerned. However my lifestyle choice is nothing to do with any philosophy of saving the world, rather it's how I'm most comfortable living; simplicity, nurtured by nature. I literally chop wood and carry water. But I also like the realm of human consciousness; the web of thought that connects us all.

Same here for the last three days. It hasn't happened before.

I agree that The Secret of the Golden Flower is a thoroughly Daoist text. However I also agree with Marblehead that no concept of karma or rebirth can be found in classical Daoism. These ideas were simply not part of the ancient Chinese worldview. It wasn't until the beginnings of the Period of Disunion (220-589 AD) and from the Tang dynasty to the present that Daoists increasing adopted the Buddhist influenced belief in karma and rebirth. So the reality is that the majority of Daoists do believe in karma and rebirth but certainly not all do. Daoism is such diverse tradition any generalisations are problematical. However I don't like Marblehead's assertion that "most Religious Taoists are both Buddhists and Taoists" in that it implies that the only real Daoists are classical Daoists and disregards the fact that Daoism has evolved into something vastly more diverse than what is contained in the texts of classical Daoism. Also the division of Daoism into 'Philosophical Taoism' and 'Religious Taoism' is considered by many to be a modern Western misunderstanding of Chinese Daoism.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Here’s some input into this discussion on utopias from T’ao Ch’ien written around 400 AD…… PEACH-BLOSSOM SPRING During the T'ai-yuan years [376-397 A. D.] of the Chin Dynasty, there was a man in Wu-ling who caught fish for a living. One day he went up a stream, and soon didn't know how far he'd gone. Suddenly, he came upon a peach orchard in full bloom. For hundreds of feet, there was nothing but peach trees crowding in over the banks. And in the confusion of fallen petals, there were lovely, scented flowers. The fisherman was amazed. Wanting to see how far the orchard went, he continued on. The trees ended at the foot of a mountain, where a spring fed the stream from a small cave. It seemed as if there might be a light inside, so the fisherman left his boat and stepped in. At first, the cave was so narrow he could barely squeeze through. But he kept going and, after a few dozen feet, it opened out into broad daylight. There, on a plain stretching away, austere houses were graced with fine fields and lovely ponds. Dikes and paths crossed here and there among mulberries and bamboo. Roosters and dogs called back and forth. Coming and going in the midst of all this, there were men and women tending the fields. Their clothes were just like those worn by the people outside. And whether they were old with white hair or children in pigtails, they were all happy and of themselves content. When they saw the fisherman, they were terribly surprised and asked where he had come from. Once he had answered all their questions, they insisted on taking him back home. And soon, they had set out wine and killed chickens for dinner. When the others in the village heard about this man, they all came to ask about him. They told him how, long ago, to escape those years of turmoil during the Ch'in Dynasty [221-207 B.C.], the village ancestors gathered their wives and children, and with their neighbors came to this distant place. And never leaving, they'd kept themselves cut-off from the people outside ever since. So now they wondered what dynasty it was. They'd never heard of the Han, let alone Wei or Chin. As the fisherman carefully told them everything he knew, they all sighed in sad amazement. Soon, each of the village families had invited him to their house, where they also served wine and food. After staying for some days, the fisherman prepared to leave these people. As he was going, they said There's no need to tell the people outside. He returned to his boat and started back, careful to remember each place along the way. When he got back home, he went to tell the prefect what had happened, and the prefect sent some men to retrace the route with him. They tried to follow the landmarks he remembered, but they were soon lost and finally gave up the search. Liu Tzu-chi, who lived in Nan-yang, was a recluse of great honor and esteem. When he heard about this place, he joyfully prepared to go there. But before he could, he got sick and passed away. Since then, no one's asked the Way. Ch'in's First Emperor ravaged the sense heaven gives things, and wise people fled. Huang and Ch'i left for Shang Mountain, and these villagers were also never seen again. Covering all trace of their flight, the path they came on slowly grew over and vanished. They worked hard tending fields together, and come dusk, they all rested. When mulberry and bamboo shade thickened, planting time for beans and millet came. Spring brought the silkworm's long thread, and autumn harvests without taxes. There, overgrown paths crossing back and forth, roosters calling to the bark of dogs, people used old-style bowls for ritual and wore clothes long out of fashion. Kids wandered at ease, singing. Old-timers happily went around visiting friends. Things coming into blossom promised mild summer days, and bare trees sharp winds. Without calendars to keep track, earth's four seasons of themselves became years, and happy, more than content, no one worried over highbrow insights. A marvel hidden away five hundred years, this charmed land was discovered one morning, but pure and impure spring from different realms, so it soon returned to solitude. Wandering in the world, who can fathom what lies beyond its clamor and dust. 0, how I long to rise into thin air and ride the wind in search of my own kind. (From The Selected Poems of T’ao Ch’ien, translated by David Hinton)

Yes, I consult it as an oracle. It's given me plenty of wise counsel over the years. It sounds like you are already familiar with its structure and usage. In any case, Cleary's book includes a comprehensive introduction and he also gives some methods of use and consultation.

I've found consulting Thomas Cleary's Taoist I Ching to be helpful for the reasons you outline. Out of respect, I only use it when I'm at an impasse, or when I catch myself acting on strong self-will. It's has helped me enormously over the last few decades of my life, though I need to use it less frequently now. Whenever I've approached it in genuine need, it's given me real insight into my situation.

I'd call it faith in humanism rather than simply optimism. However, other than this, I very much like Apech's comment. For a critical appraisal of humanism from a perspective more akin to the non-anthropocentric thought of classical Daoism see.... http://thedaobums.com/topic/38675-language-we-trick-ourselves-with/?p=635426 and.....http://thedaobums.com/topic/38675-language-we-trick-ourselves-with/?p=631361

I've read that this was the feeling in Europe before the first world war. But large scale war in any conventional sense seems unlikely to me. People in different countries are too connected on an individual level via the web etc to succumb to the type of demonisation of a populations that's necessary to rouse support for war. The fragile area seems to me to be the world economy. We've dammed the flow of natural change in multiple ways and eventually something must give. This is the way of the Dao. Edit: There does seem to be a demonisation of governments in general. I don't know where this will lead. I've been reading Karl's intelligently written comments with interest for that reason. I suspect this demonisation - like all demonisation - is people denying their own shadow.