Taomeow

Currently in use: "The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics," by Julian Barbour "Ling Bao Tong Zhi Neng Nei Gong Shu," by Wang Liping "Integrated Chinese Character Workbook," level 1, part 2, Cheng and Tsui Chinese Language Series (well, this one I don't read so much as write in it. )

Actually could be anything, one would have to know all the circumstances... preferably first hand. Here's the real thing running scared from Western students' demands experienced first hand. An authentic teacher (may all daoist deities bless him with countless blessings) developed some forms of his own, something he is qualified to do by his 40+ years of experience. Any form he develops is his form, however -- when he teaches a traditional lineage style, he does not change anything, he reserves his creativity for what he truly is the author of. There's a sharp line he draws between "my" and "traditional" -- even though "his" is completely derived from "traditional," it may be geared toward a particular audience, made simpler for the older and physically not fit, the busier, the space-cramped, etc., or, alternatively, more complex for the advanced -- but not in the least encroaching on the fundamentals of the tradition at that. So, he developed a beautiful form for his medium to advanced level students -- a taiji fan application for one of the traditional empty-handed routines, a new way to "weaponize" it. I was squealing with delight when he first demoed it. The fan is so alive and exuberant, it adds a yang aspect to the practice, invigorates it -- and adds a new skill to your arsenal. Well, the class didn't last. A student, who should not have joined a class of the level above her capabilities, immediately complained that the snapping, explosive sound with which the fans open and close hurts her ears, and marched out. She has sensitive ears, see. Instead of asking this student to just join a different class -- there's quite a few to choose from -- teacher canceled this practice, probably worrying that she's not the only one who might ask for the art to accommodate her personal sensitivities instead of the other way around. Who needs trouble?... Alas, there's always troublemakers of this kind waiting to assert themselves at someone's (everybody else's) expense. I can't begin to tell you how beautiful this form is, and how joyous, uplifting the sound of a dozen martial fans exploding to life all at once is to my ears. It's like those Chinese fireworks that are meant to scare away the demons at each festivity. Yet her ears won the day. May all taoist deities reward her with what she deserves for this.

Well, like I said, I don't know the situation with yoga, but the situation with taiji is not like that. It's the opposite. It's people who are firmly convinced that 2+2 equals whatever they say it equals as long as it's not 4 (down with that overrated foreign cultural tradition!) who are the real problem here. Same with taoist studies, incidentally.

Nah, the beginner math class would do just fine with arithmetic if the teacher knows that 2+2=3 is wrong.

I see that some of you would like to prohibit all objections from anyone who is promptly served instant noodles and a coke after having ordered champagne and caviar. What's the difference, those voices admonish. Gobble it up and be done with it -- and don't even think of complaining. It's not about snobbery, folks. It's about health. Don't know the situation with yoga, but non-authentic taiji is awful. According to Wong Kiew Kit, 85% of Westerners who start it drop out because of knee problems they get out of it before they have a chance to get anything else. Another consideration is the proliferation of the purported "non-marial" taiji, "for health"-- the problem being that learning taiji while leaving out the actual -- martial -- meaning of each move is like learning a musical instrument while wearing ear plugs so that you can never hear the music you are producing. And yet another -- perhaps the least important of the aggravations non-authentic non-art entails, but I'll mention it anyway. All those beefed-up hard MA dudes keep spreading the legend of taiji's martial inefficiency -- partially because of self-aggrandizing delusions, but partially because non-authentic taiji is indeed inefficient. Nevermind that they immediately change their mind after the very first encounter with an authentic master, in one hundred percent of cases. Most of them will never meet such master though, and the annoying misconception lives on. The problem is not limited to the West anymore. Anything that starts gaining commercial success gets bastardized -- everywhere. Instant noodles anyone?..

The war of tomaytoes and tomahtoes is always a sacred war. -- Remont Priborov

Again, "liberation" is a Buddhist concept, qigong is a taoist practice. A taoist practice can neither set nor accomplish a Buddhist goal. Taoist goals -- perfection, nondecay, immortality -- can be accomplished with neidan. For this the prerequisite is neigong. For this one possible venue is qigong. It can help accomplish preliminary goals -- better health (physical and mental), more peaceful outlook, less confusion, greater clarity. Good qigong is about self-discovery that may cause one to set the goal of self-improvement. We call this process of self-improvement "cultivation," or gongfu. You treat yourself as, well, a garden you're in charge of; you may find, down the road, a great assortment of "gardening tools" to use. Qigong is one of them. There's no shortcuts -- things in a cultivated garden take time and care to grow. You can't make a tree grow faster by pulling it up from the top. You need to start with the groundwork. If what you mean to ask is, can qigong turn someone who has sexual urges into someone who doesn't, the answer is no. There's rather dubious practices that were popularized by a famous teacher that are supposed to be taoist, but the results are usually poor, since they were originally developed for monks and came complete with a rigorous monastic lifestyle, very intense devotional practices taking up much of the monk's time and focus, prolonged meditations, austere living conditions, special libido-suppressing diets and herbs, and daily nonexposure to the opposite sex -- in other words, celibacy was the outcome of a great number of factors that were conductive to it. Any sexuality suppressing practices taken out of such context either fail or damage one's health toward no spiritual benefits whatsoever. Sorry I can't offer a shortcut to what you currently desire, it just does not exist. But do read up on taoism (you can start with the book I referenced, or someone else's suggestion), see if it resonates. Even if it doesn't, at least you would have a better idea of what it is and what it isn't, and will be able to compare this to the Buddhist offerings, which as I said you can also find on this forum, in another section. Good luck.

OK, where to start: 1. Your list of "bla bla bla" is comprised of taoist notions, however you proceed to say you're interested in nirvana/moksha which are Buddhist concepts. We have a Buddhist section at this forum, you can probably inquire there about these. 2. If you are single because you want to be celibate, joining a monastery is just about the only thing that will make it easier. In any event, a realistic and sensible spiritual goal is to avoid promiscuity, not to abandon sex. For this, you just need to find one person to love, and limit sexual interactions to this one person. There was much experimenting in the course of history with "absorbing" this and that energy from the opposite sex -- Chinese emperors, e.g., had an unlimited supply of such opportunities (and a harem of 15,000 girls) but this never improved even one emperor's health nor prolonged his life (most were, on the contrary, quite sickly and extremely short-lived.) Neither are monks and nuns famous for their longevity and health. The healthiest and longest lived people, statistically speaking, are the ones who define their marriage as "happy," so this is one time-honored practice worth looking into. 3. No advice on Buddhism, but if you want to learn a bit about "bla bla bla" of taoism, I would recommend Eva Wong's "The Shambala Guide to Taoism."

Been to a home of a taoist in China. A very spacious apartment, very nice, tastefully decorated, Western style. He noticed my look of appreciation and asked, "do you like my apartment?" "Yes," I said, "very much." "Well," he said, "it's not mine. My younger brother, a successful businessman, found employment abroad and let me move in his place." Then he chuckled and added, "I lived like that all my life. Never owned anything, always had everything." He's about 70. The tao provides if she likes you?..

@ dusty: yes, pointing out the alternatives -- e.g. that one whose sanity you doubt see a pro to dispel the doubts -- but by stating clearly "it is MY personal opinion that you are nuts, but I am not a professional in the field so I may be nuts myself for doubting you -- why don't you consult a third party who IS a professional to see which one of us is right" or some such. I was referring to the post (later removed, thank you, Rigdzin) that meticulously listed clinical symptoms of psychosis and so on, however. As for "unorthodox" methods of harassment, I have no idea if it is really happening or not, moreover, I believe people under harassment may start developing psychological traits they didn't have before -- e.g. getting overly paranoid when someone IS actually after you is not uncommon as human reactions go. But I've heard on this or that "alternative" radio program about such happenings, it is supposed to be a harassment tool against whistleblowers, and I've heard from numerous whistleblowers who sounded quite sane to me about this kind of lifestyle that they were suddenly finding themselves immersed in, with gangs retained to intimidate them, while never knowing if the plan was to kill them or just to put the fear of god in them, to break their spirit, will, and, yes, possibly sanity. Or at least to cause "everyone" to doubt "everything" they would say -- well they're nuts, don't you know that, how can you believe the whistleblowing part then?.. Again, I have no idea if it's true in this or every other case, just saying I've heard such stories before, wouldn't put it past the "authorities" to use "unorthodox" methods of intimidation, and seem to remember there's even a journalistic term that's been coined for this -- but I forget what it is. The KGB used to place radioactive material on the premises of people they didn't like, this I know for a fact. I don't know anything about the NCA though. @sabretooth: if you suspect radiational contamination in your house affecting your health, get a Geiger counter, you can probably buy a portable one inexpensively or find someone who would lend you one, and check the premises. They are easy to use and understand. Good luck.

We used to have a rule against diagnosing members with illnesses here. I remember the reasoning was that using this forum for practicing medicine without a license can be grounds for legal action against the owner should the wrongfully diagnosed party decide to sue. In any event, personally, I believe it is highly unethical to diagnose someone with a mental disorder if you are not a psychiatrist whose services were retained by this person.

I hope your uncle is famous -- this is lapidary! Permission asked to borrow. So far, I've been using the line from a Russian classic: "An expert is similar to a tooth abscess -- his fullness is one-sided."

I hope you had time to duck and were unharmed. The one I saw dispatched three emissaries. They walked straight into my house, ignoring not only a swarm of police cars that were chasing their tails up and down the street but also the entrance door and the walls in their way, and one of them, a woman, said, "Oh, there you are. And we were just looking for you in Guangzhou." I mumbled, "I've only been to Guangzhou three years ago." They all laughed. The rest of the exchange is classified.

In one of my favorite sci-fi novels, the inhabitants of a certain earth-like planet visited by us humans (coming from a remote and bright future) believe that they live on the inner surface of the "world sphere," with the whole of existence contained in that sphere, and with the World Light -- the local sun -- occupying its center. The earth scientists of the future trace this weird belief to the peculiarities of the atmospheric refraction on that planet, which creates this particular illusion for the observers -- one of many possible ones, all depending on the properties of a particular planet's distance from its source of light and refractive peculiarities of the gases and vapors in the atmosphere and so on. (One of the two authors of the novel is an astrophysicist, I have this thing for astrophysicists and their fantastic ideas rooted in their fantastic knowledge...) One side effect of this belief system in that thoroughly technological but morally dysfunctional world (modeled on ours of course) is that they never bothered to explore "the cosmos" because they have no notion of the cosmos due to the optical illusion they all are born into. They think the stars are just fragments of the World Light, all located on the inner surface of the "world sphere," and there's nothing "out there" and no "out there" to begin with. Which poses a great difficulty for the main protagonist who is unable to explain where he comes from because where he comes from does not exist and cannot exist in the scientific, technological, but optical-illusion-misguided minds of the locals. Reminds me of our situation with other-dimensional beings. "We" don't believe in them because we are locked in our 3D world by our beliefs.

My house is on the hill which rather steeply descends toward the ocean, terminating in a bluff, which in its turn sharply drops to the shore. When I drive down this hill, the ocean and the horizon are in full view, but when I'm about a quarter of a mile away from the beach, both start rising up -- visually -- and there's a stretch, about a block long, where the view appears to be of the ocean standing vertically like a great wall of water in my way, touching the sky very high up above my head, with the line of the horizon looking like the top of the wall. If there's clouds, they sit on the wall like salt on the rim of a glass of Margarita. If they are massive, they form another wall on top of the wall of water, rising high into the sky. If there's ships, they appear to slide off the wall like Humpty-Dumpty. If I were to go by the visual assessment of the shape of the earth based on the view I see every time I drive westward, I would have to conclude that it is a box, with one side of it made of water. Only in California though.

This was seen yesterday by many here in San Diego too, not just in LA. They said on the news it was seen as far as Nevada. We have army and naval and marine bases all over the place and people who live close enough see stuff getting launched on a regular basis. However, many of them asserted that this was like nothing they'd ever seen before. I wouldn't be able to tell a missile from a non-missile if it was just flying doing nothing extraordinary. But there were several eyewitness reports where people were giving accounts that sounded nothing like what a missile would look like under any circumstances. They were saying that it morphed into an ordinary plane and back to a ball of light and back into a plane and back into a different-colored light. Dunno, haven't seen. But I have seen strange things on a few previous occasions. Very. I have a habit of looking at the sky, every day. Probably that's why. Many people never look.

Nungali, if you keep messing with my respectometer, I will have to turn on my ignoremeter. To your questions: "Why does a ship etc." -- there's more than one possible explanation, far as I know, of which you choose one, and I choose none, since I've never made myself interested enough in this subject (I just have enough interests as it is). Two of the possible ones are: 1) the earth is round 2) the horizon, which scientifically speaking is an optical illusion, strictly follows the logic of optical illusions. Which, if you've looked at some of the good ones, you would know not to take as evidence of anything in particular. "Why does Moonie continue to ignore etc." -- sorry, I can only answer for myself. "And when did you two become a moderation team?" -- well the "you two" is not a valid grouping just because we agree on the subject of someone trolling -- what else do you call bringing up the subject of flat earth in Moonie's thread on Osama bin Laden? Not trolling, no? Then what? Moderation team, incidentally, exists today in the shape and form we all know and love due to, partially, my investment of a few mod years in the past, brainstorming with a wonderful team of back then (no less wonderful than the current one) and Sean on numerous occasions and arriving at some conclusions as a result. I resigned a long time ago but my conclusions didn't -- you have a problem with me sharing them? Respectfully? Well lose it, please. And stop trolling already. You have so much better stuff to offer. I can't wait till you snap out of it.

I don't know that much about the Socratic stance. No, I don't think that "we know nothing" is a stance to assume -- I believe however that "we know everything" is a stance to avoid. Taiji has taught me that this latter stance is extremely unstable, despite its illusion of firm solidity. A master of superior skill can knock you out of this stance with one finger. Of course you have to have the humility to acknowledge that it happened. If you pick yourself up and shake yourself off and pretend it didn't... well, I've seen it. Especially when the opponent is perceived as weaker, due to being much smaller, or much older or much younger, or a woman. Even when they land hard on their ass, they pretend they didn't. Or that you just got lucky this one time, but it doesn't mean your skill is superior, it just means they didn't care to give it all they got. Don't let me digress too far into taiji metaphors though. But back to what we know via our sense of sight. We know some nice things, e.g. the rainbow with its beautiful colors. This is something no other animal on earth has ever seen though. It is fully created by the peculiarities of our, human, visual apparatus, by those features of it that even our closest primate relatives don't share with us. Does it mean the rainbow "really is" and all those animals and insects and reptiles and fish are an illusion? and their opinion of what they see is "unscientific?.." They have something on us though. They can see what we can't, many of them. All "visible world" we see occupies less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum, our "visible light" is just that -- 1% of what's there to see in the overall assortment of wavelengths of light. Many animals have no trouble seeing what we don't -- ultraviolet, infrared, even the light disturbed and refracted by things that were there before but aren't anymore -- for instance migrating birds take a seemingly unnecessary detour around mountains that blocked their way a few hundred thousand years ago but are no longer there. The mountains aren't but the electromagnetic field still remembers them, and the birds still don't want to fly smack into that even though it's no longer solid and, to us, no longer visible. A page from a book saying "the earth is round" does not exist for us from a distance of 12 miles, but an eagle not only sees it clearly but could read it if he ever needed to learn to read in order to find out what we learn when we read our books. It wouldn't mean much to him though. The earth of an eagle is not the same planet we live on. Occasionally the earth of a human whose senses have been augmented by taoist training isn't either.

Thank you. Here's another news flash: what you see is bundles of photons which your iris directs to the lens in your eye, which focuses them onto the retina, which transforms them into electrochemical impulses and, via the optic nerve, sends them to the visual cortex, which occupies a few cubic centimeters of space at the very back of your brain, in the occipital lobe. You see what that little thing in the head tells you to see, and it tells you to see what looks like the "outside world," which it isn't -- the only thing you see is what the electrochemical impulses that charge your neural cells to emit neurotransmitter molecules across the synaptic gaps to hit the receptors accomplish when assembling the illusory "picture" for you as best they can. As best they can -- for they have never seen it. That's because the occipital lobe where it is assembled is in complete darkness at all times -- like the rest of the brain for that matter: the skull is not permeable to light. Your brain that sells you the "picture" of what the "outside world" "looks like" has never seen it. If this tells you (the generic you, not just you personally) nothing about relying on your senses toward massive conclusions as to the nature of reality, I can tell you about your sense of hearing. Smell. Space. And so on. Do I proceed?..

1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Nf6 3. d4 Bg4 4. Bb5+ c6?!

TTB has no policy against cattle-prodding dissidents back in line. No wait... there's no dissidents anymore. Now there's only conspiracy theorists. How do they tell the difference? Oh, that's easy. If it doubts what CNN says, it's a conspiracy theory. If it's not on CNN at all, it's a conspiracy theory. And if it's on CNN but is happening elsewhere and is color coded (e.g. Green) or has a season assigned (e.g. Spring), then it's a revolution. Elementary, Watson. Your information is not color coded, is not assigned a season, and is not on CNN. Ergo it's a conspiracy theory. Ergo the cattle prod. Any questions?

I disposed of my leftover hot salsa (from the Mexican takeout the other day) by putting it in my kefir lassie -- which is a vegetable concoction in my case, not fruit and not sweet as in a typical Indian dessert. This is my supercharge-before-taiji breakfast: into the blender go organic kefir (Lifeway), a raw egg, a spoon of He Shou Wu granules, a tomato and whatever greens I have on hand, and something sharp -- horseradish, ginger, chile or jalapeno, or, like today, hot salsa. A little salt too. Thunder, lightning, I'm ready for the sword practice!

Wasn't Frank Sinatra a mafioso?

No, a different animal is involved -- you need an Alligator to chop the vegetables. It's great fun to use too -- you just give it a smack, and it goes clang with its jaws... done.

A Mexican takeout -- shrimp, guacamole, pico de gallo, marinated carrots and jalapenos.