Taomeow

It's ninety degrees -- arm and sword at right angle. Black Dragon Swings Tail.

;

Hatred -- what is it? Sort of like anger plus an intellectual rationale for feeling it? Or anger embodied, included into one's physiology? A snake has venom -- at all times. Anger a poisonous snake and it will bite. Is hatred something like this? I think it is a cleaner, more energy-efficient (let alone kinder and gentler) system that is not storing hatred. But I don't think hatred is un-taoist either. I hate cruelty. This does not make ME cruel, this may propel me to action -- to help, save, protect someone weaker from cruelty. If I don't hate cruelty, I am all right, the weaker suffer and die at the hands of the cruel, in most cruel ways -- and I don't care. I remain oh so peaceful. Bleech. So, I think no one can cancel any one "bad" emotion humans are capable of experiencing without canceling them all in everybody for all purposes. Which is unrealistic. And while this is not an option, to feel the human way means to be fully human, and to hate may mean to love, paradoxically enough. Taoists embrace such paradoxes -- at least the genuine ones do -- and handle them with great care, "like one frying a small fish." Now cruelty -- that's unnatural, wrong, and un-taoist. Its prerequisite is loss of sensitivity resulting in one's inability to relate to the pain and suffering of another. This is a damaged, dislocated state. Do we embrace it in someone affected? Nope. There's a grey zone where you would have to try to figure out how to be kind to someone who is cruel, considering she is cruel because someone was unkind to her in the past -- that's how she lost her sensitivity. I think one could find a way to justify anyone and anything this way -- but I choose not to. It IS a free choice after all, to decide where you draw the line, where you demand responsibility to take the place of the lost sensitivity, where you demand that someone unable to relate to the other's pain compensate by using his or her brain, education, input from humanity's best thinkers, better role models -- something, anything -- to at least treat the symptoms if one can't be healed, to at least consciously put an end to the propagation of cruelty he or she has internalized. I hold cruel people accountable, and I don't care that they have a "reason" to have turned this way. And I hate what they do, always did and always will, no matter how taoist I get.

One of the first things I learned about taoism, before practice, teachers, etc., was that taoists get angry -- it was spelled out in the first book I read on the subject, The Wandering Taoist. The young protagonist first observes an acolyte who is in charge of taking him to the monastery where he is to study with the master get angry and yell when someone cuts into a line of people waiting patiently for their turn to get on a ferry, if I remember correctly. "Saihung realized that this anger, too, is taoism." Later, when the war breaks out and the Japanese troops commit horrible atrocities against Chinese civilians, the protagonist runs away from the monastery and joins the military, propelled by burning anger, which in this case is the active side of compassion. This, too, is taoism. If my very first newbie exposure told me instead that "taoists never get angry ever, if you are angry that makes you not a taoist," I would have dismissed the whole taoist thing without any further explorations, because it would tell me I'm dealing with new age conditioning cointelpro. Anger is not unnatural and, like all things natural, it isn't, it can't be, "always wrong." Tao invented it for a reason. What's unnatural is being forced to suppress it completely when you're a child; consequently being completely unable to either control it or express it as an adult; having disproportionate anger accumulated inside which takes the reigns of your soul every time it is aroused; having no awareness of it; and above all, unconsciously misplacing the real source of one's anger (e.g. taking out on your dependents -- children, employees, weaker people -- what you dared not express to your abusive father.) I observe, on a sadly regular basis, extremely angry people who either don't know they're angry or choose to pretend they aren't, without possessing enough tools of dissimulation to hide it from an observant student of human emotional expression and suppression. To such an observer, their purportedly nonexistent anger bursts out of all seams, it's in their facial freeze, the smile that looks like a snarl, the body language of a pressure cooker, everything. A taoist would never be this way, that's one thing I promise.

No gems in the snow. No icicles in the bank. Welcome to Xian Tian.

Avoiding naps.

One of my all-time favorite ideas. In taoism, it is applied to many sciences. E.g. in medicine, the truly spectacular formulas which are appreciated by those in the know not just as treatment vehicles but as artful works of deep wisdom, are put together just so as to unify numerous ingredients into a whole that is internally harmonized, with no part pulling or pushing too much or not enough -- very complex properties of very different herbs are interlaced in such masterpieces so as to reach a common goal. In Chinese fortune telling, a skillful reader will likewise determine a unified goal for all phases of qi involved, with particular attention to situations where something is strong at the expense of something else, and either propose to weaken the strong but counterproductive drive, or, alternatively, to appoint it the leader and subordinate the rest of the phases to its strength, even if it's not the most balancing scenario. This approach is actually known as "follow the leader" in bazi (Four Pillars) readings and is resorted to when balancing things is not an option but neither is ignoring or resisting an inherent strong vector of a particular phase of qi (the source of what those NOT in the know dismiss as "desires," as though by giving this pull a name that suggests voluntary choice of having or not having this pull in one's makeup may provide such choice in reality -- which is not the case. The choice is to act or not act on the pull once it is consciously discovered and understood for what it really is. But to have or not have it... no, this is written in the stars, and is quite a bit trickier to overwrite.) So, to continue with the bazi example, to be born with an unbalanced chart is exactly the situation described in Wenzi -- "the body by the rivers and the sea, the heart at the court of Wei." One must overcome the imbalance -- the pull of, say, inherently strong Fire to the court of Wei, because going there will increase the imbalance. But if one can't overcome it, "follow the leader" is the principle chosen -- if your Fire is leading you to the court of Wei, let the rivers and the sea dry up but go there, don't go for the double injury of neither extinguishing the excessive Fire nor nourishing it. This, incidentally, was John Lennon's bazi situation. He went with the "follow the leader" scenario. "Going down in a blaze of glory" is what it does, whoever is after fame and fortune, upon choosing this route, would throw all he's got into the already excessive Fire so as to be rocket fueled to reach the court of Wei. Whoever is after a long peaceful life, on the other hand, would choose the opposite route, extinguish the Fire, and again avoid the double injury. But whoever does neither and is torn between the two drives is doubly injured. No fame, no fortune, no long peaceful life.

To a memory, the rose always meets the dawn, never meets the bomb

Nothing up my sleeve. No rabbits in my top hat. No tricks. Stark magic.

Becoming this, that, you unbecome other than. Bifurcation's horns.

edit: every time I attempt to write in this thread, I wind up deleting. Apologies all around.

"There's men out there who want to love a thousand women, but the real man loves one woman a thousand different ways." -- An acquaintance's father

Well, these days they do things a bit differently... They kill the grains first with a massive dose of Roundup administered a few days before harvesting: http://www.247wereport.com/health-news/chemicals-toxins/item/2495-the-real-reason-wheat-is-toxic-it%E2%80%99s-not-the-gluten.html As for pre-soaking grains -- that used to be a common practice, and what was mostly used is lye, to my knowledge (for masa de maiz, they still use it in Mexico. Mmm... tamales... Before I went grain free, I occasionally bought this lye-treated corn flour at a Mexican store and made my own tamales the traditional way, with lard, no BS oils, and with... nevermind... that was zen, this is tao.) A staunch against-the-grain researcher would tell you that sprouting solves a few problems and creates a few new ones. Sprouts, they will explain, are plant infants, and like all infants, they could be easy prey for predators -- lots of insects and small and large grazers would be all over them while they are tender and nutritious, but the thing is, they don't touch them. That's because those tender nutritious sprouts defend themselves by releasing massive amounts of natural pesticides, toxic substances aimed to discourage the would-be munchers. As one biologist put it, "In the language of biochemistry, plants spell out, loud and clear, their profound hatred of the herbivores." So, if you're after a safer grain -- well, lucky you, they don't practice Roundupicide in Europe -- I would go traditional with lye water, or stick to grains that aren't grains -- buckwheat, quinoa... although hardcore paleo people would explain why that isn't OK either... but I'm not doing the hardcore thing for the moment.

Here's my very own (and partial) ineffable lists -- [a] for the ineffably benign, for the ineffably malign: [a] Fathomless She, with a capital S Mother of the Universe The Valley Spirit Geometry Tsai yoshto yoshto That Music That Forest S, The Mysterious Border They, with a capital T Them, with a capital T The overlords The Machine The Pyramid T, inverted, The Press

From World Tibet Network News site: A most popular Tibetan origin myth asserts that Tibetan people descended from a male monkey. The monkey, an incarnate of the "Compassionate Spirit" deity Avalokitesvara, met and married a mountain ogress. Eventually, Avalokitesvara and the mountain ogress proudced six offspring. The "hybrid monkeys" resembled Avalokitesvara. Over time, the Tibetan descendants of these six offspring gradually lost any remaining animal features. Tibetan people trace certain characteristics of modern humans to Avalokitesvara and the mountain ogress. People who are "merciful, intelligent, sensitive and do not talk more than necesary" inherited such traits from Avalokitesvara. Meanwhile, those Tibetans that are "red-faced, fond of sinful pursuits, and very stuboorn" resemble the mountain ogress (Shakabpa 5). Adherents to the monkey origin myth rely on ancient documents discovered in a Lhasa temple by Atisha, an Indian scholar. The myth documents claimed to have been written "according to tradition during the reign of Songsten Gampo in the seventh century" by a scholar named Shankara Pati. (Shakabpa 5). My comment: since Avalokitesvara himself proceeded to incarnate as the female deity Quan Yin in taoism, and according to "Journey to the West" had an epic love-hate relationship with Monkey -- a much less civilized specimen of essentially the same kind -- looks like not just people but at least some of the gods and goddesses as well can trace their origins to monkeys. Which confirms my (and universal shamanic) belief that animals are us -- only better.

@dusty: tattoos haven't become an inheritable trait, have they? If we self-selected for "sexy" for the length of time sufficient to affect our inheritable traits, we'd have gone extinct long ago. No species self-selects for "sexy." All species self-select for "healthy," toward "good health in posterity derived from procreating with this healthy-and-strong one," "good provider," "good defender," "adequate parent" and so on -- that's what makes sense to evolution, and that's how appearance of the specimen comes into play. But "sexy" means none of these things. The very existence of the concept is a symptom of power abuse -- think of what it really means, think if it's something that dovetails with any survival/health/well-being imperatives... It's a symptom of artificial selection not toward survival of the species but toward enslavement of the species, via its "sexy" specimens and those who are invited to emulate them, to try to be that. To be that rather than to be what evolution would favor. To be that toward something that has nothing to do with the species' well-being. We haven't had the "sexy" idea in our minds long enough for long hair to have accommodated it genetically, just as tattoos haven't been accommodated genetically. Wherever we got it from, we didn't self-select for it. @eye: thanks for your thoughts, I'll take a closer look later, gotta run...

What exactly does "celestial origin" mean? God, gods, a demiurge, seraphim, nephilim... aliens?.. Higher spirituality creating lower, via higher technology?.. Lower spirituality in possession of higher technology creating us in its image and likeness?.. which is why our technological advances surpass -- nay, squash, flatten, marginalize, exterminate -- our spiritual development?.. I do believe in the "as above, so below" doctrine -- and the state of affairs "below" would fill me with dread as to the state of affairs "above" even if I hadn't seen it. But I have... We are a species of power abusers, that's the main thing to know about us. If all of humanity wakes up to the fact, we might make it. Otherwise we will just join the ranks of millions of species that tried it on this earth and didn't make it. Not because they couldn't adapt to their environment. But because they couldn't adapt to their environment without compromising this environment. The most deadly virus does not abuse its power the way we do -- nothing kills 100% of its hosts, but we are after precisely that whenever we deal with whatever we deem as "lower" that we think is in the way of our "progress." That's the recipe for extinction, clear and precise. "Do not abuse power," the only law of the universe per my sources, means "or else," among other things. It's not abstract, it's the only way any unlimited power can work. If it is used in a way that damages its field of application, it runs out of a field of application. Doesn't matter if it's in one family or one galaxy, it's the only law we need to know -- and we as a species still haven't learned it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed -- till the end of time, or till the end of our time. But I'm also looking for a way out of this failed-species trap, that's what taoism is for...

Does not. Does not work with anything except artificial genetic modifications, in fact. It calls for haircuts (nature does not plan for these) or braiding or ponytailing (ditto) or shaving (ditto) -- in other words, without the involvement of technology you get ungroomable tangles. If you live in the forest, it will tangle and catch in the branches of the trees you climb, endangering your life -- and trees we did climb as a lifestyle of many hundreds of thousands of years, humans retain many features suggesting brachiator, tree-climbing, ancestry. If you are aquatic, technology free hair will interfere with your ability to see while swimming. If you are ice age (which is the bulk of human history on Earth), you are in need of fur all over your body rather than long hair on your head (why didn't we have the former, which would come in so handy?..) Long hair can only be explained in the light of our own modern genetic experiments -- whimsical, like growing human hair (or a human ear for that matter) on the back of a mouse, or making this mouse glow in the dark (accomplished by splicing with the glowing jellyfish genes). Zero adaptive value -- in fact, predators will have a better go at mice that self-illuminate in the dark -- but "scientific curiosity" and perhaps even a morbid aesthetic sense of the scientists, coupled with our actually practiced, rather than announced, scientific method -- "we do it just because we can" -- produced many a glowing mouse with human hair on its back, and untold numbers of similar chimeras. Our long hair is better explained by some similar endeavors than by any natural developments.

Where it never ends, the war rages on -- while here, no one gives a fuck.

This is one of my favorites. And I think it's rather unpopular compared to the milder, tamer taoist texts precisely because of its spirit of dissatisfaction, rebellion, seeing-through-BS -- it is, if it is legit (and I would find all discussions as to its legitimacy boring because no one who says it isn't has proof beyond a reasonable doubt, so I go with, innocent unless proven guilty), as I was saying, if it is genuine, it portrays a very different Laozi from the TTC but not so different as to be in conflict with the more popular personage. As different as, say, I am in a conversation with close, friendly, like-minded people from the way I am with the "general public" in writing. More outspoken, far freer, far more radical, energetic, animated with reserved, controlled, but unmistakable passion -- almost revolutionary -- and witty and... well, you know it by now, I love Wenzi. I'm not qualified to analyze it character by character, but I'd be interested in seeing those who are do it. But the main thing about it is its spirit, which can't be derived from any one character or combination thereof. I would invite everyone who would participate to meditate on its message so as to capture that...

Awake? Shall we have some coffee first? You take this cup and I take that.

Common with magnesium deficiency. Not the only possible cause, but I would start there.

We didn't begin to care for the vulnerable, Marblehead, we stopped caring for the vulnuerable -- the children of the species. The human baby is born more helpless and dependent, and stays so for longer, than the young of any other species. A chimp baby, although a lot better adapted to early independence, spends all its first year on the mother's body, and the next three years, most of the time. It is the only way for the simian kind to learn a real non-disconnected relationship with life -- not in the head but systemically -- via caring physical contact, interconnectedness, direct-input experience of feeling safe and protected in space and time, things about gravity, motion, energies of the world, and closeness with another being. It is the way they learn love. We are what we are because our babies spend their imprinting, early-developmental years differently, while having similar, only greater, needs. The "disconnect" Eye-of-the-storm is talking about happens at birth. This is unsound whether from the POV of evolution or natural selection or what have you -- this can only make sense if humans are supposed to serve something or someone other than humans, since our child-rearing practices do not serve the human species.

Nungali, English differentiates between "monkey" and "ape" but Tibetan might not -- colloquial Russian certainly does not. To be on the safe side of the whole monkey business, I used "simian" -- but Tibetans might use "monkey" to mean "simian," as Russians do. The Chinese use "old mouse" to mean "rat." Doesn't mean they don't know the difference, and moreover, they somehow know a rat from a mouse of advanced age. All context-dependent languages find solutions to the nonlinear nature of their morphology by different methods. English is not as context-dependent, so it has to strive for cleaner morphology, but those verbal clean-ups affect its genesis mythology only in the minds of the creators and recipients of the myths. In reality no one knows exactly what it was humans originated from -- if it was anything at all. I mean, really. No one. So, if that was your only objection, switching languages removes it in its entirety. (Whatever removed it to the pit must have been a misreading of your intent I'm guessing. If it's any consolation, what I thought was a very funny visual illustration of my lack of piety toward the "scientific method" also got removed.)

Of course there's far more attractive origin myths out there...