Taomeow

My point exactly.

I see. Thanks for looking into the possible/impossible logistics. I'm right-hand-dominant so I don't know if it's true first hand (pun accidental), but I've heard left-hand-dominant people complain that all the tools we think of as unbiased are actually designed for the right-handed, and some, explicitly so -- like fabric scissors, wrenches, or computer mouses (mice?..) -- I've heard some lefties assert many everyday consumer designs imply they don't exist, or don't matter. I thought about it when I realized that what you're saying is that our forum software (not "our" in the sense TDB, in the sense "all of it?") is designed just so that it can only be used hierarchically. It demands vertical control and disallows horizontal. So, it is designed to the precepts of Indo-European religions and patriarchal pyramid subordination schemes. And here I am with my taoist idea of a horizontal, non-hierarchical structure of control. Duh... figures...

,

Worlds: Theodicy. Ground control to Odyssey: "A space oddity."

You've been living in a dream world, Neo.

Still, I'm not aware of a taoist non-mythical hardcore criminal who repented and became saintly and became an immortal. Petty theft -- well, Lady Chang-o stole the pill of immortality from her husband, but he was a cruel tyrant abusing his people, and compassion, trying to prevent his taking the pill and perpetuating his atrocities into all eternity, was at least half of her motivation. She became the goddess of the moon. Then again, the rebellion of the Duke of Zhou against the Shang king, who fed King Wen his other son while keeping him in prison? "Did you kill a king?" they asked the Duke and his followers in horror, and the response was, "We executed a tyrant." Meaning, the mandate of heaven was revoked once the king became a tyrant, and it wasn't criminal to kill him, nor immoral -- it was moral and just.

Well, Monkey, for sure. Though come to think of it, he started out as an immortal, but a bad one, and then transformed into a worse one... and then taught the rest of the immortals to put up with him.

Yes, exactly! It's as though being restricted in one's responses to either benevolence or silence in just one place on the face of the earth is still too... I dunno... too what?.. ???... ...too much self-control to ask for? more than some people can bear?.. the same people who gladly bear being controlled by anyone and anything as long as it's not themselves?.. ...or... ...too much surrender of control to ask for? How come someone I disagree with will be freed from the cognizance of my disagreement, how come my sacred right to set him or her straight will be denied? And I won't be able to apply my plumb line to his or her path?.. In this one place?.. Intolerable!.. A test is a test, a result is a result. Research is better than religion. Moses would be screwed if the burning bush which god chose to manifest himself through refused to burn, talk, or otherwise behave unconventionally. A researcher of the nature of god, however, would just make a note in her journal: "no god in this bush."

Yes, everyone given mod capabilities in The Garden Of Sovereign Blossoms section and disallowing to use them in others' threads seems doable enough! Preface it with "You can't moderate other people's threads here" -- and I think most won't most of the time -- and if someone does, it would be just one more transgression, out of any number of possible ones, under regular mod scrutiny. If the rule is, e.g., "don't moderate other people's posts or you lose your access to this section," I think there's a close to 100% chance that people will refrain from doing this. Of course there's ways to abuse any setting, established anywhere for any purpose, if a malignant mind is bent on abusing power. Some minds are like that, but to take the power away from everybody at all times for all purposes in order to try to stop them actually translates into giving them more power than they deserve IMO -- not just for the purposes of the subject under discussion, incidentally. I always feel bad about "everybody" losing certain freedoms "for safety" -- it only makes those who would use these freedoms and now can't a bit weaker, and eventually a lot weaker, and by the same token, automatically strengthens any and all malignant adversaries they are supposedly being protected from. If everybody is weak, powerless, and stripped of a maximal amount of freedom, anything that puts its mind to it can overcome such a meek and weak target. Matter of fact, it worries me in the larger world a lot more than on the forum, but there's little that can be done by members of this forum in the larger world. Here, we could try, see if we can handle responsibility -- or discover (again) that we pretty much forgot how, because there's always someone else telling us do this, don't do that...

I've come across a similar practice proposed by a Tibetan buddhist. The very first thought with which you meet another creature, human or ant, must be "I wish you happiness," however it only works if it is the very first thought, not an afterthought. In other words, if that's your spontaneous reaction to meeting another being. Is that how it happens for you -- or do you think whatever first thought and then self-correct to "I love you?" I've tried this, and I beleive there's a difference between spontaneous benevolence which does indeed change the world for the better, and self-policing for benevolence, the latter being a form of repression of your own real current state that does not benefit the world and is long term damaging to the practitioner. However, practice makes perfect. A thread where you either come at the default setting on "I love you" and "I wish you happiness" toward the OP or else don't go there at all could be a start? What do you reckon?

Nah, the ax to grind someone might bring (like, e.g., the one you brought into this-here thread) would be taken away, is all.

No committees. One rule and the rule of one. Monarchy has always been the only model of doable anarchy in human history, as much as anyone raised on the ideals of democracy may be loath to realize. This is what TDB is, incidentally. One owner, one sovereign, and one rule -- the mandate of heaven. In a fractal fashion I want to see if this model can be extended to a small subsection which would consist of any number of fiefdoms, with one overlord over one thread in each. The thread he or she creates. One king, one queen, one tyrant, one totalitarian dictator. Not a pack, not a gang, not a stampede. One owner, one thread to own. Not all that horrible if you think about it? And bam you're banned would apply to one topic only. How horrible can it be? You are banned from Birds And Bees Thread, but this does not mean you are banned from the Mice And Men thread by the same OP in the same section -- and most certainly not from anywhere else on TDB. What's so intolerable about Birds And Bees proceeding without you derailing, attacking, sarcastically invalidating, etc., what the OP wants to discuss with other Birds And Bees aficionados? You're allergic to bees, you want to chase them away? No you can't. We get honey where you get your allergies, so please protect yourself and go elsewhere. Or the Queen Bee of the topic will expedite your departure. THAT kind of an idea.

I think quotes are OK for as long as the quoted party doesn't object. If he/she does, they are not OK. IMO.

No, editing others' posts is not cool under any circumstances. Experience: The Tea House. There was, or maybe still is, an admin named Becca there. She edited people's posts as a regular endeavor. Removed what you said, inserted what she thought you should have said instead. If she was a better writer than me, a better taoist, a better human being and all other things "better" that her editing implied, maybe she would be doing me a favor. But I didn't think so, to tell you the truth. And I couldn't wrap my mind around others putting up with that -- except, well, people do put up with certain things for the sake of remaining part of a community, that's the whole point, we're all starved for "our tribe" in RL, or at least many of us are, hence attempts to join and make work a virtual one. It's not about information. It's about tribal instincts. Anyway, back to Becca -- I left after the very first unsuccessful attempt to explain to her how extremely uncool what she was doing was. Never once went back. Ran across this same practice once again as I recall, at a health related site. The owner was a former newspaper editor. He thought everything needed to be edited, and also hated the social-media-engendered format of communication, and consequently edited all posts to the specs of a newspaper article. Again, no convincing him that it's control freakism meets grandeur mania, so I dropped out.

I see the difficulties. Alpha test, results negative so far. A Deflate No Spirit section is impossible to uphold. Just one rule -- respond with something non-contentious, constructive, contemplative, harmoniously resonating -- or with nothing at all -- is THE rule that bends out of shape some people who obediently follow ten thousand other rules every day everywhere. One rule -- but a rule that would make it impossible to hurt another human being. Interesting input from all, big thank-you to all respondents. How difficult can it be to say nothing at all when you have nothing good to say?.. Yet if there's no way to enforce it, people who live for to assert themselves at someone else's expense will make sure they banish the very thought of any place under the sun where they can't. A negative result is a result -- a scientists who thinks otherwise is biased from the start. I'm not. If it is shown clearly that this is impossible to do, I'll just take it to where it's possible to do. I am mostly interested in the technicalities of such an endeavor -- its morality is clear to me as it is. It's a moral thing to do, to not deflate someone else's spirit. No-brainer, nothing to test. But whether someone who doesn't believe in it can be shaped, by a One Rule place, into accepting this One moral standard -- that's under scrutiny. Any result is a result.

I think Thelerner offered a possible tech approach, which I however didn't understand. I will try posting the link to this thread in the Forum and Tech Support, see what mods might say.

The whole is not available to a modern man or woman. Hasn't been in ten thousand years, give or take. Shortcuts so many would take in the general direction of its beckoning but elusive embrace don't work -- except for a brief moment sometimes, followed by a painful crash and burn much of the time. Wishful thinking doesn't work. Doing the work works. That's what taoism is all about. It's not about "putting your mind to it" -- it's about putting "the whole of you to it." A whole is a whole -- not an idea in the head. However, taoism doesn't leave the head out of it either. It leaves nothing out of it. Thinking "whole" thoughts is not where it's at. Being whole asks for more. And, no, it's not necessary to master the ten thousand things. It is however necessary to master at least one. As a Shaolin saying goes, "I don't fear the ten thousand different kicks you have practiced. I fear the one kick you have practiced ten thousand times."

Thanks for the interesting quotes and for your thoughtful consideration of my take. You're right about taoist ideas using the same word for different things (or for different aspects of the same thing) being usually not unrelated, though in specialized contexts this "same word" is typically used as a specialized term, and you sort of have to forget that it means something different (however related) in a different context. Chinese is an extremely context-dependent language. A word without its semantic environment means nothing at all, more often than not, or in any event nothing definite. It needs its peers to acquire meaning. The role of the king is played by his court. The eight and five "winds" of the text you quoted -- in this context "wind" is again something else, it stands for -- well, I usually refer to these as "energies of the world," there's no word to my knowledge that specializes in meaning what these thirteen mean. I know them well from taijiquan though (to name one practice hinged on these). They are also sometimes referred to as "thirteen songs," and they are certainly attributes and manifestations of qi. What they have in common with "ordinary" wind is their dynamic nature. They are not something that exists separately from acting -- they arise when they act. Like the wind, they can come in gusts, or in continuous pressure, or just as a gentle breeze -- or as a hurricane. They can carry moisture or dryness, can be hot or cold... (not crazy about the "Seasonal correspondences" table you quoted from your source by the way -- both "wind" and "damp" are out of place there, e.g. right now we're in the Year of the Earthly Stem of Dry Earth... so, "damp" is not one of the inherent attributes of Earth, unlike its Center/Late summer [not 'long summer'] position -- likewise, "wind" is not one of the attributes of Wood, unlike its East/Spring position. Of course here we're dealing with cosmic seasons, not only local ones, and with cosmic directions, not just earthly ones.)

The wuxing and bagua are superimposed in all taoist sciences, in particular classical Xinshi Pai and Liqi Pai ("form and compass" schools) whence my approach comes. You are not dealing with "one OR the other" in any astrological, feng shui, or medical or martial or what-not analysis -- you are dealing with both simultaneously. It's just that we analyze them sequentially, but it doesn't mean that the part currently not under scrutiny is not part of the phenomenon. Confusion, alas, is common, since some of the terms from the wuxing system overlap with some of the terms of the bagua system, and both, with words in everyday non-taoist usage. The word "wind" -- it can mean just wind as a weather phenomenon; then, as such, it can be analyzed with wuxing approach like any other phenomenon, whereupon you can discover its wuxing nature if you've been trained in the procedures; it can stand for a "pernicious influence of Wind" with properties of "penetrating, piercing, cutting and hurting inward" in TCM -- this will often refer in a very indirect manner to the weather phenomenon, the infectious and especially viral diseases such weather may or may not be associated with, but primarily to the body having had its defenses pierced and penetrated by something unknown and unobserved that is however called Wind because it behaves like Wind, Metal, phase of qi from wuxing perspective; then, importantly, there's the Wind of the trigram Xun in bagua -- that's where you must have concluded that if you know the trigram Wind, it means Wind is not part of the wuxing system. Not so! -- so, Wind of bagua, a totally different concept from Wind qi manifestations as one of its behaviors/phases being analyzed with wuxing methods for its wuxing affiliation; then there's Wind of feng shui, which comes from the Heavenly Stem and shapes the Earthly Branch, an extremely advanced idea of a carving, shaping, form-giving function of creation. My all-time favorite taoist poetry line goes, The shape of the mountains reveals the shape of the wind. This is best understood via direct observation in a state of deep concentration, with subsequent prolonged contemplation. Now as to the external form that has to be ignored, this is in reference to the phase of synthesis. Form-compass feng shui, astrology, medicine, taijiquan and all the rest of taoist arts and sciences start with analysis -- you let go of the form after you have mastered it, not before. Wuxhing and bagua provide tools and methodologies for this analysis. You master their applications to taoist cognition and praxis by using them, not by discarding them from the get-go. Oh, and Western astrology is entirely superfluous in taoist sciences -- of course it's possible to dig up some parallels if one so desires, because we share a common world (and because both have common Mesopotamian roots), but Western astrology as it survives today is so inflated with top-heavy metaphysics and so arbitrarily psychologized that I find it pragmatically cumbersome, intellectually confusing, and spiritually clogging. So... thanks but no thanks.

Thank you for the validation. Yes, people who are no strangers to various "know thyself" routines usually recognize their own proprietary phase (and the strongest dominant one too, which may or may not coincide with the "self" phase) on many levels of their makeup, sometimes instantly, the way you recognize yourself instantly when looking in a mirror. One of the reasons I love wuxing analysis is that it usually aids self-discovery, self-acceptance, and when necessary, self-correction. Makes it very easy to catch oneself being pulled/drawn/propelled in particular directions by very fundamental forces, much deeper than (though not excluding) psychological traits, social conditioning, habits, etc., and consciously decide if this particular drive is to be just acknowledged, accepted without judgment, or resisted. I make at least half of my choices with my own wuxing phases being the deciding factor -- but if I was one hundred percent wise, I'd shoot for one hundred percent. In the human blood (as well as in the blood of all vertebrates), Metal is most prominently active as iron-containing oxygen, the transport metalloprotein known as hemoglobin. It is in charge of carrying oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. Taoist scientists who determined that Lungs, i.e. the whole organ-system-function in charge of respiration (metabolizing Air, in other words) is of the Metal phase, didn't have microscopes to see molecules of iron engaged in this function, but their own methods discerned it without fail.

If it's any consolation, most indigenous people of most cultures believe that photographs steal pieces of one's soul. A prime example of someone who took this belief to heart would be Castaneda -- no one has ever seen a picture that's reliably of his face, he didn't allow taking them for any purposes (except for the passport or some such.) I didn't know this growing up, but I had an inexplicable aversion to being photographed throughout my most photogenic years (teens and twenties), which of course I regret today. But who knows -- maybe if I didn't avoid it, I'd be soulless today. Celebrities who have their pictures taken all the time mostly fare horribly and many die young, while many others exhibit all the symptoms of a classical shamanic "loss of soul."

You've just boosted his Maoshan street cred.

I've come across this take on Wind too, and upon contemplation deemed it erroneous. It depends on how a particular school sees Wind and its behavior -- as a manifestation of Air or of what Air/Metal controls -- Wood. I have seen wind control trees, so I side with the school that sees it as extension of Air-Metal. As for "cutting" action, in my native tongue there's even a word for this kind of wind -- literally "cutting wind," and you have to have experienced that climate to know that it does cut -- not as deeply as a metal knife, but it's exactly the same kind of impact, only of more diffuse nature. Prolonged exposure of unprotected skin to such wind will indeed result in cracking and even bleeding. Also the "cutting wind" leaves its mark on the landscape -- I've seen rocks and boulders and mountain ranges carved by such winds. The wind of Wind-Water, feng shui, is the Metal wind. Carving and shaping, like a knife.

I do see you like wuji. But wuxing is phenomenal only in Later Heaven. In wuji, it's a potential. In taiji, it manifests. The way it manifests is by creation, destruction, and control. OK, I gave an example of the yang end of the spectrum of Metal qi properties -- let me give you an example of its properties on the yin end of its spectrum, to better illustrate how it generates Water. (Mind you, it doesn't mean that Metal comes "before" Water -- it's a continuous cycle, in which Water actually comes first -- but that's for another discussion, one that has already taken place.) One has to take certain foundational taoist concepts to heart -- of these, an important one, proclaimed many times, is that "external form does not matter," "external forms deceive," "external forms blind" and so on. So, with this in mind, let's follow the reasoning behind the ancients including Air and Wind in the Metal category. The form of the element Metal does not matter -- this phase of qi was dubbed Metal for convenience and for the fact that the element metal, objects made of metal, etc., that are part of this phase (and nowhere near all of it) is readily observable. It's a mere memory aid though. What we are dealing with when we talk Metal is a set of behaviors. So, why is Wind "Metal?" Because of the properties and behaviors of this phase of qi -- penetrating, piercing, cutting. It has no form though. Doesn't matter. It behaves like Metal, so it is. Now Air. It's a gas, right? On the extreme yin end of the spectrum, you can get straightforward liquid by condensing it -- liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen, etc.. Here, again, we observe the property of Metal "generating Water" in form. But it contains this property, this behavior, albeit hidden by certain forms, in all its forms and all its formless manifestations, it's just that one has to push it to its yin or yang extreme to observe and perceive it with human senses. But it's always there. Properties of phases flow into each other in sequence -- that's what "generate" means. Life on Earth, a Wood phase phenomenon, is generated by Water, and Water is readily observable within it. But not in the external form of, say, an elephant or an oak tree -- even though their water content is comparable to that of a jellyfish. In general, taoism views all of creation as a family where "parents" generate "children" -- it's not a mechanical sequence at any stage, it is literally giving birth to what comes next and nourishing it. The bagua (Eight Trigrams) are also a family. Each trigram consists of "family members." Yin and yang in their primordial state are progenitors -- Tai Yin and Tai Yang -- Great yin and Great yang -- whose posterity, Shao Yin and Shao Yang (Lesser yin and Lesser yang), proceed to generate whatever else comes into being. And so on. "Generate" is a very basic concept in relation to the cosmic process of Conception-Growth-Fruition-Consummation. Bagua and wuxing are methods to analyze this process and its behaviors, and have very little to do with "elements" which its certain phases/moments/behaviors manifest.

Until he wasn't -- and that's when he sought Mak Tin Si's help, remember? I always had regrets about Mak being socially so abrasive that he had to go. I loved his contributions -- if you get past the didactic tone and the absolute imperatives (or is it imperative absolutes) in which he communicated, you could find a whole spectrum of beliefs, practices and ideas derived from Chinese folk religion, an amalgam of many things not entirely non-taoist though not strictly taoist either, and some of it was great fun. Although one would have to have a background in some taoist arts to begin with to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, fact from fiction, imagination from reality. He's like an encyclopedia of Chinese folklore from things practiced in remote villages since time immemorial to Hong Kong movies of today. Fun stuff. Too bad he had to destroy what he could give with a pretty useless overall attitude to his audience.