Geof Nanto

Dao Bums is the only social media I use, and my sparse level of posting gives no indication of the amount of time I spend reading discussions here. That sincere engagement helps keep me connected with the thoughts and experiences of other people whose life is centred on spiritual practice, and the insights I gain help deepen my understanding of myself and human nature in general. I’m naturally reclusive and my day-to-day interactions are mostly spent in silent communion with the forest that surrounds me; with the natural elements and with the wildlife. Taken as a whole, the discussions here teach me in ways that are complementary to the silence wisdom of nature. By feeling my way beneath the surface in both, and learning to discern meaningful interaction from the meaningless, the voice of Spirit becomes clearer to me.

For insight into Damo Mitchell as a person, I highly recommend this video. He discusses his aims as a teacher of Daoist arts, and at length about how being a teacher of some renown feels for him. Although Damo is not my teacher, and I’ve elsewhere expressed some reservations about the teaching of neidan in general, I have a great respect for him and am very happy for him to be a public face of contemporary Western Daoism. To me he comes across as a real person in that he values the cultivation of both thinking and feeling. He’s someone who is always learning, a person of authentic humility and compassion. (Incidentally, Damo is a member of this forum. He joined on 7 August this year but without making a Welcome post. I suspect Trunk admitted him silently and his remarks in this video gives some insight into why he joined in that near the end he talks about his reaction to criticism of him on public forums such as Facebook and Dao Bums. Those remarks make it clear that it’s extremely unlikely for him to engage in discussion here. And I totally understand why that’s the case. However, if he was to become an active member, this video would make an excellent Welcome post. )

@steve You’ve been a huge stabilising influence on this forum. While I can fully understand your need to move away from a staff role on Dao Bums and am profoundly thankful for the effort you’ve put in, my overwhelming emotion on reading your message was one of sadness. And on that I’ll say no more. Rather, I’ll let this complex web of feelings wash through me over the course of the day and hopefully some new insight will be born. It’s a beautiful sunny and mild spring day outside and I’m about to head out to do some landcare work. I’m thankful for connection to my land. Nature is a great calming and grounding influence on me.

Sitting in Oblivion: The Heart of Daoist Meditation by Livia Kohn You can download the Contents and Introduction for free at the Three Pines website: https://threepinespress.com/2020/08/01/sitting-in-oblivion-the-heart-of-daoist-meditation/

The importance of support groups, I totally get it. NA saved my life from heroin addiction back in the 1980’s. But in NA we never talked about drugs as evil. We never tried to convince other people of their folly in using drugs. Rather a foundational principal of NA (and AA for alcohol) is that if you want to use drugs that’s your business, but if you want to stop come to NA. In other words, these groups are fundamentally not evangelical. The problem I have with the PPD discussions in question is that their focus is on the evil of vaccines, of the supposed damage they do to our physical bodies. And to that end a large amount of extremely dubious information has been presented. If the discussion stuck to the sort of issues Luke raises above then I wholeheartedly support it. Cultivation of my subtle body is of primary importance for me. I try to avoid taking any sort of medication and have almost entirely done so for the last 30 years. Yet I chose to get Covid 19 AstraZenica vaccine. One, because I’m old and I have legacy health issues from my drug using days, notably respiratory weakness. Two, I could feel how much subtle energy I would need to expend to defend myself against the power of the collective push to vaccinate everyone. Also, I was curious to feel for myself what effects I felt from the vaccine. At this stage I notice no adverse effect on my subtle body and am very pleased I feel a measure of protection both against Covid and against the very real pressure to vaccinate. There are so many ways ‘normal’ contemporary lifestyles damage our subtle bodies. Drugs and alcohol are just one of the more obvious examples of many. Of these damaging influences, I personally don’t consider the one off taking of a vaccine to be a significant concern.

Thank you for addressing this issue Trunk. I go for option 2 myself. Allowing what is really controversial current affairs discussion in members PPD’s was always a loophole in the new rule confining current events discussion to a separate section. To my understanding, PPD’s are not meant as little subforums where people can spruik their own opinions on controversial topics.

No way did I laugh at that. It reminded me of a news article I read a few days ago: I used to drink until I passed out so I could forget my past. Then I got a cat “In 2019, I was in the throes of recovering from a devastating rape. I was constantly suicidal. I knew that I needed something other than myself to stay alive for. So, I got a kitten. Before I got my cat, I would spend the evenings drinking until I passed out. I used to drink until I didn't know where I was, or who I was, or what had happened to me. I would wake up bleary-eyed and sick and shaking — but at least I'd have forgotten what it feels like to be violently sexually assaulted by someone holding a blade to your throat…. My cat helped me to feel things again. He helped me feel things that were stronger than my urge to die – my love for him, and the fact that he needed me. I needed to stay alive because his survival depended on mine, and as soon as I met him for the first time, I knew that would be enough.”

Solitude, I reflected, is the one deep necessity of the human spirit to which adequate recognition is never given in our codes. It is looked upon as a discipline or a penance, but hardly ever as the indispensable, pleasant ingredient it is to ordinary life, and from this want of recognition come half our domestic troubles. The fear of an unbroken téte-å-téte for the rest of one’s life should, you would think, prevent any person from getting married. Modern education ignores the need for solitude: hence a decline in religion, in poetry, in all the deeper affections of the spirit: a disease to be doing something always, as if one could never sit quietly and let the puppet show unroll itself before one: an inability to lose oneself in mystery and wonder while, like a wave lifting us into new seas, the history of the world develops around us. ~ Freya Stark, The Valleys of the Assassins

I love it when there are fireflies around. You're blessed to have them already, especially inside. They are magical. But none here as yet. They normally come in October when it’s warmer. It’s still chilly here some mornings. Sadly, last year only a few. I assume the massive forest fire of 2019 decimated them. Overall, however, in the aftermath of so much loss of flora and fauna, the forest is recovering well. Masses of native regrowth. And the lantana is almost entirely gone. But as yet not much wildlife other than birds. I particularly miss the wallabies that were abundant here. Only a few now…

The Tightrope Walker In Thus Spoke Zarathustra the tightrope walker falls and dies from his injuries. Two options; either walk the tightrope or fall. Yet there’s a third possibility. I’d say our human situation has been for a long time something more like this:

I lost a dear friend a few days ago. She was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis a year ago and treatments failed to curtail its rapid progression. She was 66 years old, a little younger than me. Thankfully, she died in peace, no acute suffering throughout her illness. She was able to stay in her own home until the last few days when her lungs irreversibly collapsed. She was fully conscious and lucid until the end, when at her request they switched off the machines keeping her alive in intensive care. There was no hope for her survival. She had accepted with great equanimity in the preceding months that her end was approaching. She reread The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and had a strong, long-term Bhakti yoga practice. Yet, understandably, she said it was very hard to finally let go. Without oxygen, she rapidly faded into the world beyond this one. But sad, oh so sad. The second close friend I’ve lost this year. In her memory:

I’ve mentioned in previous threads how helpful and complementary to Neidan I find the conceptual imagery of Western alchemy for gaining insight into my actual experiences of alchemical transmutation: Rebis (from Wikipedia) The Rebis (from the Latin res bina, meaning dual or double matter) is the end product of the alchemical magnum opus or great work. After one has gone through the stages of putrefaction and purification, separating opposing qualities, those qualities are united once more in what is sometimes described as the divine hermaphrodite, a reconciliation of spirit and matter, a being of both male and female qualities as indicated by the male and female head within a single body. The sun and moon correspond to the male and female halves, just as the Red King and White Queen are similarly associated. Rebis from Theoria Philosophiae Hermeticae (1617) by Heinrich Nollius

Yes, but there are various other specialist meanings of the terms yin and yang in alchemy. And within that terminology yang is used to donate superior qualities. It’s confusing for sure, and the patriarchal bias comes into play with this usage, and goes deeper than just the terminology. But it’s a complex topic of which I have no wish to get bogged down in because I’m not wanting to fight it. I just take it all as part of the general patriarchal environment that pervades our human world and navigate it to the best of my ability in a way that honours my own more feminine inner experience. Mostly that means keeping key aspects of myself hidden. Indeed, hiddenness is a key yin quality of the Dao as the Daodejing repeatedly mentions. I find it more than a little ironical that early Daoism with its promotion of feminine traits has become so masculinised in mainstream neidan. For some general background info on the various ways yin and yang are used in alchemy as surmised by Thomas Cleary, here’s an extract from his introduction to his translation of Liu Yiming’s The Taoist I Ching. The final paragraph is particularly relevant to Bindi’s OP:

If you haven’t realised by now that virtually the whole discourse on alchemy is written from a masculine perspective, then I can’t see that anything Bindi might say will serve to enlighten you to what seems to me an obvious fact. Indeed, I think she's either very brave or very foolish (or both) to broach the subject on this forum dominated by the masculine perspective. Although I greatly respect your dedication to practice and the clarity with which you are able to communicate Daoist alchemical doctrine, the path you are on is only one of many valid alchemical paths. I’d call yours a yang path, the path of a spiritual warrior; a path with definite goals derived from doctrinal clarity. Whereas mine is a yin path, a path with no definite goals other than the cultivation of emotional clarity. That’s the basis for feeling my way towards enhanced connection with the mystery of Dao. “These [alchemical] processes are steeped in mystery; they pose riddles with which the human mind will long wrestle for a solution, and perhaps in vain. For in the last analysis, it is exceedingly doubtful whether human reason is a suitable instrument for this purpose. Not for nothing did alchemy style itself an “art,” feeling – and rightly so –that it was concerned with creative processes that can be truly grasped only by experience, though intellect may give them a name. The alchemists themselves warned us: “Rumpite libros, ne corda vestra rumpantur” (Rend the books, lest your hearts be rent asunder), and this despite their insistence on study. Experience, not books, is what leads to understanding … The forms which the experience takes in each individual may be infinite in their variations, but. . . they are all variants of certain central types, and these occur universally. They are the primordial images, from which the religions each draw their absolute truth.” ~Carl Jung

You are in my thoughts, Earl Grey, and you very much have my good wishes. Please keep us informed of your condition.

That’s how I’ve been washing my hands and showering for over 20 years. I started washing that way because it felt more in harmony with my body’s needs and my environment. It increasing felt to me as if excessive washing of any sort, and especially using soap, was damaging my body’s protective qi. I also do dish washing by simply rinsing under running water. No soap works well for me within the semi-wilderness environment in which I live, but obviously urban dwellers will have different needs. I don’t usually mention it because washing with soap is one of our culture’s most basic hygiene mantras. Hence, I was pleased to read this article explaining the importance of skin bacteria: https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2021-08-07/covid-19-hand-hygiene-washing-skin-microbiome/100296570 [Incidentally, the article is from Australian Broadcasting Commission (abc) which is the Australian equivalent of the BBC. It’s not related in any way to the American ABC network.]

What I wrote is something that works well for me. If anyone finds it useful, great. If not, it’s not something I want to push onto other people.

I could feel your anguish over the Covid discussion and can well understand why you might want to step back for a bit. Obviously you know best how you want to interact here but I’m hoping you keep an active presence because, perhaps more than anyone else, you help give this forum heart. But whatever you chose, you have my good wishes.

Bob Dylan once commented that Cohen’s songs were increasingly sounding like hymns. Here’s another one of spiritual longing and human despair from his last album:

One of my favourite artists of all time is Leonard Cohen and his last album is one of his greatest. There's a Japanese tradition of writing a brief poem when at death's door. I bought a book of these poems expecting deep revelations as many are by Zen monks - but I was disappointed as most feel contrived to me. However, that's certainly not the case with Cohen's You Want it Darker. The whole album is excellent and contains the best death songs / poems I've ever heard. Totally authentic emotion from a master communicator - a magical weaving of darkness and light; of embodied humanness with its worldly desires and very real suffering interplaying with profound spiritual longing. But perhaps only deeply meaningful for few. I suspect he's too honest for most, for the many who seem to like their spirituality sugar coated. (At the end of the chorus Cohen sings “Hineni, hineni; I’m ready, my lord.” Hineni is Hebrew for “here I am,” and is the response Abraham gives when God calls on him to sacrifice his son Isaac. It is also the name of a prayer of preparation and humility, addressed to God, chanted by the cantor on Rosh Hashanah.)

You do very well. I very much like reading your contributions here even though my own perspective on alchemy is markedly different from yours. It's also worth noting that no one has ever been able to write about the deeper levels of alchemy in an easy to understand way. That simply is not possible. As Isabelle Robinet writes in The World Upside Down, "The language of alchemy is a language that attempts to say the contradictory."

I imagine by now you’ve found information on this because I know you’re a good researcher. And, having read it, you may understand Cleansox’s reticence about answering your question. I’ve attached an essay by Fabrizio Pregadio which I’ve recently read that makes good reference to true yin and true yang in the context of Liu Yiming’s perspective on correct and incorrect Neidan practice. I consider it an essay well worth reading whether or not one agrees with Liu Yiming. As Pregado notes, Liu Yiming’s “views on Neidan are, on the one hand, grounded in some the most deep-rooted aspects of this tradition, but also, on the other hand, so adverse to convention as to appear radical in their detachment from accepted standards. However, while Liu Yiming’s teachings on Neidan are in many ways unique, his works represent one of the most important instances of an integral exposition doctrine in the history of this tradition”. Also worth noting is that Liu Yiming was an 11th-generation master of one of the northern branches of the Longmen (Dragon Gate) lineage. Discriminations in Cultivating the Tao.pdf

I very much like that song too. Although it speaks of physical abuse, its vibe evokes emotional trauma. That's why I posted it. (And yeah, I knew from your description that you didn't suffer physical abuse.) Yes, absolutely!

When I read this post of yours yesterday, it reminded me of a song of your namesake which has been on my mind lately. I was tempted to add a link but refrained as it’s well off-topic. Physical abuse of children is universally condemned as abhorrent. I’d say emotional abuse is far more pervasive and likewise leaves deep inner scars. I never suffered physical abuse as a child, nor obvious emotional abuse, yet very much so on a more subtle level. And most of all, I relate to how Luka holds his hurt deep inside.

Okay. There's nothing wrong your understanding of theory. And your ability to communicate is excellent. These areas are obviously not your weaknesses. That why I made the cultivation suggests I did. You have my sincere good wishes, TT.