Taomeow

Oh no. You're the absolute champion of this forum in the number of posts! Are you prepared to risk losing your record some ten years from now due to non-posting in the anarch sections? Do think twice!

Well, yes, not just states -- constitutional rights are an endangered species quite, quite federally. But what is going to happen here is not civil war material. It's more like creating a podium where people take turns speaking and listening, instead of trying to shout, over everybody with something to say about something entirely else in the same place at the same time -- or over a gang, crowd, stampede yelling "you are wrong" the moment you open your mouth to say something unorthodox. It's about a chance for a bit more order out of chaos, not "worse order as the only alternative to chaos."

Freedom of speech is a constitutional right (at least that was the idea before it went south), not a right of a private citizen to grant or take away from another private citizen. TTB is going to experiment with giving a private citizen -- a member of the forum -- the power of the government in his or her own thread. Thus the freedoms of this forum, open to the public but privately owned and operated, will be expanded rather than undercut by adding sections that grant the power of a government to a private party, for the limited purposes of his or her own threads. A member starting his or her own thread is not going to undermine any of your freedoms except the freedom to hijack, derail, invalidate, or otherwise fubar his or her creation and the original intent embedded in sharing it. Which I'm sure is the freedom anyone can well do without -- and those who can't, ought to learn. It's like not shitting in the pedestrian walkway, in a street made available to the public -- yes, someone who needs to go might feel restricted in his freedom, but we've all learned to live with that, for the benefit of one and all.

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I didn't mean you personally, I just felt like quoting an old TV show character who defined his friend in this manner, someone who was always very knowledgeable about all things and very logical and helpful in his analysis -- like many people I know in real and virtual life. As for whether every chapter can be interpreted thusly -- I don't know, most probably, but I haven't tried analyzing them all in sequence, I usually go for what jumps out at me. E.g. Chapter 15 -- describing what the sages of old were like on the surface -- became a taiji practice manual when my practice got to a place of "getting it" kinesthetically, and then went into the alchemical subtext with taiji neigong. And the one about "followers of life and followers of death" -- that's the quick overview of taoist numerology and astrology as they pertain to neidan. But I'm no expert on Laozi, I go to the meta-text only occasionally. I'm on a quest for the text.

Secrets are kept for any number of reasons, but the main one is, that's how nature does it. Things that are a work in progress, not ready to be exposed, it hides. E.g. a fetus. A seed in the ground. An oak tree in an acorn. Ultrasonic scanning for pregnant women was created by the human mind, not by the mind of tao. Tao only reveals the secrets of gestation to the gestating. Taoist internal alchemy is aiming at, and therefore models itself on, the mind of tao. The gaping hipster dufus has never been its audience, nor ever will be.

In many cultures, the point for the eyes on the earlobe is pierced in children before age 8 and earrings are permanently worn in order to safeguard lifelong healthy eyesight. It is not efficient if done later. Scars along Conception Vessel do not interfere with the flow of qi and any of the functions if healed properly, because the body establishes a new meridian to the left or to the right of the scar. Scars across the Conception Vessel (as in Caesarean) are a different matter altogether -- these do indeed cut the flow, and this may not self-repair and may or may not be fixed with acupuncture later. Scarring for purposes of healing is traditionally used when "traceless" acupuncture is not efficient, and usually accomplished with deep moxa burns and/or assorted therapeutic lacerations, some of which are meant to leave a scar intentionally. The scar, strategically administered, is akin to a permanently inserted needle (or earring) and is used when continuous stimulation is indicated. I've seen many scalpel-like implements for this purpose in a museum of acupuncture in China. Of course, like with superficial acupuncture, one has to know what one is doing. Therapeutic scarring went out of medical fashion in the West mostly because it was severely abused by the medical profession in the 18th and 19th centuries and practiced preferentially on infants (the term was "blistering") because adults had a say in it and usually said no. Eventually some parents decided that if they don't want to do it to themselves, maybe they should think twice before doing it to even the most annoyingly crying babies -- blistering was so painful it could send an adult into a shock -- but infants in shock just went quiet, stopped crying, and if they survived, which they sometimes did, the doctor was thought of as having helped instantly and expertly -- for the baby did shut up. But too many were dying, so eventually it was noticed. The method used by Western doctors was barbaric and torturous, with zero therapeutic value -- however, when administered with full understanding of the subtle anatomy, it is still successfully practiced in hospitals in China. Random scars can indeed create blockages, but non-random ones can remove them.

Thank you for trusting MHO. To get a chapter in terms of internal alchemy, one needs to already have a basic handle on internal alchemy and its extensive symbology. I wasn't kidding when I said "meta-text and context" -- TTC does not give you neidan from scratch, it relies on the already-in-existence operators of this field, it does not invent it -- rather, it encapsulates it. One could represent, say, War And Peace in the format of a comic book, reducing each chapter to quick sketches and brief captions -- think of TTC as a comic book made out of the meta-text of neidan. Thus, to start with a chapter would be too extensive -- for each of them really stands for a much bigger one. So to illustrate what I mean, let me give a try to just one line. "Know the white but keep (to) the black." This is logistics of a certain neidan process, part of Kan-Li interactions. "White" has its symbology: it is related to the West; Guan Ping, who became the god of war, Guan-di, is represented with a white face; white is the color of the cosmic autumn and stands for old "tired" qi; in the ancient tradition of Chinese theater, personages with white faces signify people who are cunning and treacherous; one should never wear anything white in one's hair, as it is very unlucky; "pure white" is an expression that means "virginity"; men are said to "wash themselves pure white" when they are castrated. The purity of white is thought of as alchemically sterile. White is the color associated with the phase of Metal, and Metal is controlled by Fire -- so introducing "pure white" practices into Kan-Li processes is not efficient, because Li will overcome the white. Black, on the other hand, is associated with the North, Water, a salty taste (the salt composition of the amniotic fluid is identical to that of ocean water), and as a symbol stands for darkness (not "enlightenment" but "endarkenment"), and honor. On stage, eight heroes with blackened faces represent men who are honorable. Black-Water controls Fire, so Kan-Li interactions must rely on these forces, since Li will obey the black. "Know the white" -- the world of the visible, in-the-light, manifest -- "white" is the symbol of breathable air (Metal phase), but in the alchemical process, kick-start the "black," the invisible, unmanifest -- "black" is the symbol of the amniotic fluid you breathed before you were born (Water phase). And so on. And so forth. Even this one line is inexhaustible, I've just given a glimpse.

To take your own pulse, hold the limb of the pine tree felled for your tax forms.

Good topic, bad execution. Let's start from scratch. There's books out there -- especially, but not exclusively esoteric ones -- that have more than one, and sometimes more than a few, layers of meaning embedded into their carefully crafted structure. The uppermost layer is sometimes deceptively clear, and sometimes obscured by the need for this deeper structuring, and may sound weird if one does not discern other layers underneath that dictated a particular shaping of the upper one. The hidden layer, once discovered, can be very deceptive too, because successfully finding what was hidden and not noticed/understood by the "ordinary" readers may result in a cocky know-it-all attitude, and the person able to decipher what others missed forms a false idea of his or her powers of interpretation. But there's books where this second, hidden layer, while having its own cognitive merits and revealing some secrets, is also just a way to hide an even more esoteric one, a layer that can't be deciphered from the text alone. So here we can find ourselves at the level of meta-text and context. The pointers to the meta-text may be there -- or not, its presence and significance can arise contextually without ever being revealed via any particular verbal or symbolic detail. For example, I was watching an episode of the new (and mercilessly leaked ahead of release -- thanks streamers) season of A Game of Thrones. There's a scene therein. Melisandre is attempting to seduce John Snow. He is finding it hard to resist but at the last minute stops her, takes a step back, and tells her, "I've sworn an oath." She points out that he had broken it once already, and that his lover is dead and does not need him anymore. He says, I know, but I still love her. Melisandre, leaving the room in charged silence, then turns around before stepping out the door and tells him, "You know nothing, John Snow." No one will understand the thunderous occult implications of this simple statement who doesn't have the meta-text and the context. No translator, if this was an episode in a book that survived a thousand years from now, without the prequel having survived, would know that what it really means is that Melisandre has powers unimaginable, that her quoting something that was the dead girl's intimate way of saying "I love you" which she couldn't possibly know anything about by ordinary human means is a dire warning -- that what she (Melisandre) really said to him means "I command forces you can't begin to fathom, you are messing with something more dangerous and terrifying than you could possibly ever imagine." And it's not even an esoteric ancient book in Chinese -- it is a modern popular show. Goes to show you. As for TTC. Yes, it is a book on neidan. It does not invalidate reading its topmost layers correctly as a political pamphlet, and the next one as a taiji instruction manual, and even, perhaps, as a work of philosophy (though I've always had reservations regarding this particular layer, suspecting that most of it was contributed by Confucian approach imposed artificially and by foreign translators of other denominations flavoring the original with their own interpretations.)

This is exactly my point. I never said power shouldn't be used. I said it shouldn't be abused, and people must learn the difference. Must learn the difference or disappear from the world. The universe does not tolerate either non-use of power when it must be used or use of power when it mustn't be used for longer than it takes an experimental species to try. Any species as young as ours is experimental. Blow it and you're gone. Nothing endures in this world that does not know how to use power without abusing it. Nothing.

"Redirecting the forces of the world to suit ourselves..." ...hmm... one would have to be separate from the world and in opposition to it in order to see power this way. Which, unfortunately, is exactly our position. But it's not a good position to be in, not a smart one, and above all not a durable one. So, use of power the way the world uses it is the right way to go. Ever gave birth to a child? That's a tremendously powerful process, and you don't redirect anything to suit your needs when you engage in this power completely, with everything you are. You start redirecting and abusing power, however, when you employ artificial methods to boost fertility of someone whom nature has deemed not healthy enough to procreate at this time, or induce labor by a certain date, so chosen because the parents or the doctor have a vacation scheduled and consequently the new world (which every child is) will be born not quite complete so as to accommodate that which suits someone else's needs, and tampered with from the start -- and imprinted with a drive toward tampering with stuff because that's the first systemic lesson he or she has been taught. An experiential, internalized, embodied lesson in power abuse. Can you tell the difference? Inducing labor against the way of the world is also a kind of power -- to use this power is to abuse power, to have it but not use it is use of power.

That which makes things come to life, grow, be whole and supple; that which helps creatures live out their years in harmony with themselves and others, enjoy their life, and fulfill their destiny -- is power. That which robs things of life, growth, health, wholeness, takes away their chance to live out their years in harmony with themselves and others, robs life of its enjoyment, and thwarts destiny -- is abuse of power. That which feeds the hungry and heals the sick is power. That which exploits hunger and sickness is abuse of power. That which fulfills natural needs is power. That which denies their fulfillment or exploits them is abuse of power. That which draws its energy from the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, air, water, food, safety, freedom, love, and other live creatures is power. That which draws its energy from displacing other creatures and fencing off their access to the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, air, water, food, safety, freedom, love, and other live creatures is abuse of power. And so on. Basically power gives what the recipient needs, and abuse of power gives what the abuser wants to give, or nothing at all, or something not equal either to what is needed or to what has been taken away. Power gives as much as one needs. Abuse of power gives less than one needs or nothing at all or takes away from someone already in need. Also all kinds of abuses of power are founded on a falsehood -- you actually have things you need taken away from you, but in such a manner that you don't even know they were taken away from you, and then whatever you get you are led to believe is something you would never be able to get for yourself if the powerful didn't dispense this charity. You are effectively born a white mouse in a lab cage, and a thousand generations of white mice before you were born in the same cage -- so you have no idea what you really are, the competent, happy, free wild forest mouse that you were a million years ago, or even a house mouse a thousand generations ago. This you don't know anything about, but you know that this guy in a white coat gives you sugar if you behave. And you love him. He's your hero. He's your higher power. But what you don't know is what you lost in order to get that lump of sugar -- you lost your destiny, you lost your purpose, you are serving someone else's purpose. You don't know that power has been abused to make you believe you're getting something while in reality you have been robbed blind of everything you need, everything you once had, and everything you are.

Thank you, SC! This takes me back... to China.

Hair in TCM is directly related to Blood, the connection with Kidneys is indirect. Hair follicles have receptors of sex hormones and these are indeed directly related to Kidneys, which in TCM include reproductive organs and functions. They are set up to respond to different levels of testosterone and estrogen differently. High levels of estrogen suppress them on the body and face but not on the head. High levels of testosterone activate them on the body and face but may suppress them on the head -- which is why hirsute (hairy), bald, sexually hyperactive males are not uncommon -- their testosterone is typically high and is responsible for the pattern. In an infant, more hair than average may be hereditary (e.g. babies of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern origin tend to have more), hormonal (higher levels of estrogen stimulation at gestation), or indeed point toward strong healthy Blood. And in any event it's pretty.

And the quiet mind rests in Nemuri Neko -- Sleeping Cat Temple

Fascinating. Like something straight from Louis Cha's novel, The Deer And The Cauldron, whose low-born but very lucky protagonist befriends Emperor Kangxi and at one point travels all the way from Beijing to Moscow with a stop at a secret fortress in Siberia that apparently connects both countries with underground tunnels, seduces the Russian tsarina Catherine the Great while at it, and so on. There was a secret island too in the novel (though in a different location), a conspiratorial abode of a bunch of, well, conspirators with the long arm of their hidden power extending all the way to Beijing and pulling assorted imperial strings... (An aside: people familiar with Chinese or Russian or any, for that matter, history get a good belly laugh when someone sneers at what they call "conspiracy theories" as though it's something ridiculous -- because history is pretty much nothing but... the aforementioned tsarina, e.g., was placed on the throne as the outcome of one such conspiracy culminating in a coup.) My first thought was, this mysterious Chinese palace could have served a similar purpose... And the Uigur, incidentally, have been incited into clashes with the Han Chinese lately after many centuries of peaceful coexistence... nothing conspiratorial behind the scenes, obviously, just out of the blue... like all those blue, orange, yellow revolutions... but don't let me digress. Thanks for posting.

She can have them all, on a wing and a prayer swept into her void

My whole point is that technology and science are not the same thing. Technology works without science. Science is not something that proves itself via technology -- the most fundamental sciences are too complex to even dream of creating, by any linear methods, any technology that could use them. Try creating a worm... not based on the technology already in existence (the actual worm) but from scratch, based on the science of how a worm is put together that we currently have. Try it... it's been tried, and it's not doable on the basis of our science. Tinkering is doable, you can disassemble and reassemble the worm. Science is not -- you don't know how to make one no matter how much data you've accumulated on how to tinker with parts. The illusion of our technology being based on our science is what lets our science claim the knowledge it does not possess. We're good at tinkering, we're good at slapping together theories to create an illusion of the latter explaining the workings of the former. But in reality theories are theories and tinkering is tinkering, and one does not depend on the other at all. Everything that "works" in our world was based on tinkering, invented by tinkerers. None of what works works worse if we don't have a theory for it, or better if we do. Investigate for yourself, you'll be shocked... The inventor of microbiology clearly saw the tiny homunculus in the head of each spermatozoon under the microscope he tinkered together, and believed that that's how we reproduce, because that was the theory. It did not affect the practice, it only affected how what was observed was interpreted. The rest of it is exactly like that too. We can make a bomb, that's true, but it does not mean we see and understand how it works, we've just tinkered enough to produce it. Many theories have replaced each other since we first produced it, with no effect of tinkering on the science or of the science on the tinkering. We don't have a science that produces technology. Shocking but true. We have technology, and we have science, and we have the illusion of one being based on the other. One is used to glorify the other the way you would claim expertise in biophysics behind your ability to lift your arm. You've got the technology, but you don't have the science behind it. It's every bit like that with all our external technologies. Shocking...

And again we pretend that these purportedly isolated (from what? From what we can isolate them from, nothing more -- and that's not the universe, or even society, or even the meddling bosses) "laboratory conditions" "minimize the impact" of the fact that the scientist will have to have his proposal for the experiment in this "isolated" laboratory approved by some "higher ups" and financed by them in case he manages to shape it just so that they would want to, and the work will have to be "peer reviewed" by peers who are in exactly the same boat they don't want to rock under any circumstances lest they themselves fall out of it, and in case they get the wind of this work promising rewards before reviewing it, they will rush their own replica and try to publish first (I'm currently reading a book by a leading geneticist expounding on this very situation), and while at it, cutting corners and tweaking with data to rush their package and establish priority, and that the multitude of other factors on the "outside" of the "isolated lab" will all be "objective" to the max and no consideration will be given to how this new information affects the whales of the field (what if it invalidates everything they built their career, position, power on?), and no corporation will buy the rights to use the applications and then put the discovery on the shelf (any scientific discovery has millions of potential applications, from cognitive to pragmatic, unlike an "invention"), and that highest caliber science produced in this 'isolated" lab will be accepted and acknowledged just because it's true, regardless of who this discovery makes rich or poor, makes look stupid or gives a chance to say "told you so" to, or "in your face!" or "you are fired?.." Dream world, Neo.

I most certainly did. Which is why I maintain that the world of Houtian we live in is best approached from the foundation of the Luoshu math and all the physics flowing out of it. (And pre-Big-Bang Xiantian, that's the anti-physics of Hetu.) When Zhen-Thunder in the Northeast explodes and gets all of the forces of creation that were sitting there doing nothing (you don't feel like doing anything in perfect balance) to shuffle and reposition and start rotating around the double torus of existence-nonexistence (sic), that's the point (repeated many infinities of times, and to be repeated many more) when the Turtle gets a kick from the celestial Dragon-Horse. Things really speed up after that. Which is why, like I said, the observer has to slow down or she will never see this sequence simultaneity. See, to see this sequence, one must enter it. You, yourself, have to merge with the Turtle in stillness and sit like that for as long as it takes for the Dragon-Horse to get bored and kick you. What did you (the generic you) think motion-in-stillness and stillness-in-motion routines are?.. Physics!!! And the only way to learn real physics is be it. There's no observer. There's no place in the universe to stash him away and drill a peep hole in the rest of the universe to observe it through while remaining unnoticed, "carry on, I'm not really there, I'm an objective observer, I'm not part of what I'm observing, I'm nowhere to be found in the universe I'm observing..." Whoever told you this is the holy cow we all should worship as "the scientific method," whoever told you "real" science is done like that, has taken you for a ride. Slipped in very faulty, very very damaged logic -- have you noticed?.. No, the observer and the observed are one. You are it or no physics for you, young lady/man. Only technology. I.e. what you can do if you externalize it. That's no science. That's tinkering. You can make an atom bomb based on a theory slapped together of expensive and impressive ticky-tacky and blow something up, granted. But you can't become a universe with ticky-tacky physics. You need the real thing for this.

And I am still convinced that if you slow down the observer, he/she will see that it's turtles all the way down.

I've just watched, for the n→ time, a train of ad hominem roll over a train of thought going in the direction the travelers of a pre-installed track want blocked and torn down. More and more iron trails are being installed for the specific purpose of cutting, blocking, demolishing any and all paths whereby one might wander off somewhere else, somewhere not pre-installed. Join the ride, run for your life, or get cut to pieces -- these are the only options being offered. They aren't getting off the train to explore your humble little footpath. Get on the train or face the wrath of the machine. I propose a section closed to the machine. I propose a section where the following model of communication would be tested: you come to share your ideas, however outlandish, to see if there's any fellow travelers on that particular path who want to walk with you for a while. Gaping at a butterfly or a UFO, mistaking a shadow of a bush for a shadow of a Bush, laughing at your mistake or indeed finding a Bush in the bush, or some other exotic lizard. "Thought so!" The trick being that anyone who comes to tear down this path would be immediately banned from this particular section. It's a tribal abode -- and intruders are never welcome, not for a second. It is a fortress, embattled, wise, it does not expect any safety outside its walls -- but it's safe inside. Be a member of the tribe, or go back to your own tribe. Don't come here with discord. Come with a fishing rod and join the fishing expedition when we are on a fishing expedition, don't come throwing stones into the lake scaring off all the fish, don't come telling us we should go to the supermarket for a can of tuna instead. Don't throw stones at our heads for thinking differently from yours. This is not an "off off-topic" section I'm proposing, this is "off limits to discord." The topic does not flourish just because it's "any" topic. It flourishes if it's a topic closed to those who don't want it to exist in the first place, for whatever reason. It flourishes if the missionary does not intrude on your village, whether a peaceful one or a settlement of warriors. Warriors too need to come home and rest by the fire and tell the stories of the wars they've waged and the wars waged against them to people who are members of their own tribe -- for our purposes, the tribe of this particular topic -- sympathetic, empathetic, never forcing the tired warrior to defend herself in front of the fireplace where she's trying to catch a break, out of the blue, just because they can. I propose a section where they can't. Come sit by the same fireplace, listen to the story, tell your own, or go away. Is this kind of anarchy doable? Anyone up to testing it? The rules would be simple -- contribute constructively, not destructively, to the topic offered. Or go away. Argue elsewhere. Here, let's talk with the understanding that it is one hundred percent safe. No one will attack you or your ideas. No one will demand that you stop knowing what you know and instead be barraged with demands that you start proving to someone else whatever the whatever crawled up their ass wants you to prove. No wet blankets, no nay sayers, no professional spirit deflators, no corrective facilities for the incorrigible independent thinkers, nothing of this kind -- go to your own train and to your own tribe to peruse these. Here, the worst thing that can happen to you will be, you will find you are a tribe of one, no one is joining you by the fireplace. There will be no other retributions whatsoever for your being you. Anyone interested?..

Says Insomnia, "Great novels don't write themselves! Up! Up'n'at'em!"

Morning dew at dawn, grasshoppers, dragonflies, bees -- stay a while, don't go...