Taomeow

We lived in a consumer-technology-impaired country when my kids were little, and had an old black-and-white TV, from way back in my own childhood I think. Then we got a color one. My daughter, then about 4, didn't notice the difference, and didn't understand what I was talking about when I told her that now it's all in color. She asserted our old TV was all in color too, and thought I'm playing some weird trick on her when I tried to explain that it was black-and-white. She never saw it as black-and-white, it had always been a color TV for her.

Red and blue

El don de la dislexia/ The Gift of Dyslexia (Spanish Edition) [Paperback] Ronald D. Davis (Author) For reasons unknown, the Amazon prices for this book (even for the used versions) are ridiculous. I don't read Spanish and wouldn't know where else to look. I need it for a Mexican woman who dreams of reading books but pretty much can't. From the symptoms she described, I gathered she's dyslexic and could benefit from this particular book (she'd probably have to ask someone else to read it to her). I've read it in the English original and count it among 'influences' even though I've never been dyslexic -- it's got some uncanny insights into the workings of the subtle bodies (though the author never uses this term or anything from the "spiritual" repertoire, he's a brilliant empiricist). Whoever can help me locate the Spanish version for to borrow or buy at a reasonable price, please yell.

I think Buddhists got this one down pat. "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." This line is usually misunderstood as admonishing the disciple to think for himself and not fall into the personality cult trap, guru cult trap, immortal cult trap, etc.. -- all valid concerns, people love to snare themselves in cultist straightjackets trademarked with the name of this or that higher being -- but the line is utterly pragmatic. It is a test, a call not to faith but to a scientific experiment. If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him -- that's the only way to find out if he's immortal. In a similar way, my taiji teacher might ask a holder of a black belt in this or that hard MA to attack him -- for real, "give it all you've got." Then he will use one finger to deflect the charge, proving on the spot that taiji IS an immortal art in the skilled hands. No amount of talking could convince the black belt. Trying to kill the Buddha does -- instantly. And that biblical story about one of the patriarchs (forget which -- Jacob?) wrestling with god -- that's along the same lines. And Monkey King challenged so many celestial immortals to combat... and gave them such a hard time... the merciful Quan Yin herself lost patience with him and hurled her vase of compassion at his head, knocking him out cold... ...but also proving that he was indeed one of the immortals himself. Immortals are a feisty bunch, generally. No piety. If they seem pious to you, they are archons in immortal's skin. You can tell an immortal by a full range of feelings, finely nuanced and harmoniously modulated, a rich palette of emotions, a profound sense of humor, an arcane air of mystery and irony about them that you've never breathed before. If they don't have the full range, if all they exhibit by way of emotions is from this or that new age manual, they are semi-synthetic, to be avoided at all costs.

It wasn't the Moors after all...

One of the most dramatic cases resolving a very severe eyesight condition exacerbated by surgeries I know of is that of Meir Schneider, who now teaches a whole bunch of techniques he first successfully used on himself. I looked into his material years ago and don't remember the details, but there was a distinct qigong flavor to some of his practices, applied to the eyes specifically. Here's from the website: http://self-healing.org/meir-schneider/ Born Blind Meir Schneider, PhD. LMT, was born with cataracts and other serious vision problems to deaf parents. After five unsuccessful surgeries on the lenses of his eyes, which left them shattered and filled with scar tissue, doctors pronounced his condition hopeless and he was certified permanently legally blind. He performed his reading and schoolwork in Braille. Inside, he never relinquished his dream of gaining sight. At age 17, Meir learned the Bates Method of eye exercises. He practiced them with a diligence that probably no one had ever applied to them before, up to 13 hours a day, undeterred by the opposition and skepticism of family and physicians. To this he added his own regimen of self-massage and movement. Learning to See Within six months, he could recognize visual objects for the first time in his life; within 18 months, he could read print without glasses, holding the paper a few inches from his nose. Today, he holds a current unrestricted California driver’s license, and his vision continues to improve. From 20/2000 (able to see from one foot what a normally sighted person sees from 100 feet) to 20/60 (70% of normal vision)!

I may be a coffee fundamentalist but tea leaves room for improvisation (and tea leaves, for puns.) In Nepal they drink it sweet, with yak butter. In Chukotka, with butter but also salt. In India, sweet, with milk and chai masala (a mix of hot spices). In Russia, with strawberry or cherry or raspberry preserves, or lemon and honey or lemon and sugar, or neat but with a hard, non-instant lump of sugar on the side. In Japan, powdered and whipped with a bamboo wisk, thick like foamy mud. In Ireland... well, not sure, but have my ideas. I've tried it every which way (barring yak butter which local supermarkets don't carry), and have a few favorites and a few no-ways. Green, I usually drink neat. Black -- it depends. Very partial to the Indian sweet-milky-fiery version of Ceylon black in winter. Don't know how to make the Japanese version so no one gags. (Reading a book by a lineage master of The Way of Tea right now to find out.) The real Russian way (ideally around an antique Tula samovar, which I have but can't use indoors for lack of a chimney) is to drink tea as an excuse for the night munchies and thoughtful, in-depth political or existential discussions with friends, late at night, in the kitchen for maximal free-form informality and spontaneity of the occasion. I think this is still my favorite way.

double

Hope in the distance, trouble behind, danger now, when's my right time, Kent?

Many moons ago I asked this question, and the respondent, a Dzogchen monk, answered somewhat cryptically, "Tao is not unlike you." Years later, I understand taoism as a quest for that real you which is not unlike tao. Anyone who went deep in the pursuit of "know thyself" must of necessity discover that what he or she routinely thinks of as "me" is a construct, a composite made up of assorted ill-fitting bricks of psychological, physical, mental, spiritual conditioning executed by parent and teacher, doctor and preacher, politician and salesman, cop and judge, assorted dispensaries of carrots and sticks, etc. etc.. The spiritually timid label the bricks of this construct something impersonal, abstract -- "fear," "greed," "ignorance," etc.. The spiritually courageous, however, get to the bottom of it and come up with the actual doers of the brainwashing, individuals and groups, not abstractions. You have no fear until you are scared and intimidated (or manipulated and cajoled) into obedience, you have no greed until you are seduced into believing what you want should far exceed what you need in order for you to be adequate in society, you have no ignorance until your feelings are denied and disallowed, and so on. Identifying who did what toward producing this unreal fake "me" is step one. Step two is getting rid of all the fake "me" that is not the real you. What remains -- that's tao. And what guides you on this quest, all the tools -- philosophical, religious, empirical, physical, lifestyle-related, state-of-mind related, behavioral, etc. etc. -- the toolbox of wonders to fill with qi and yin-yang, Laozi and Fuxi, I Ching and feng shui, taiji and qigong, alchemy and magic, deities and immortals, compassion and harmony, above all nature and her ways -- her true ways, on which tao patterns itself -- that's taoism.

"Not only is there no god. Try to find a plumber on a Saturday morning." -- Woody Allen I guess a proponent of the "it's all illusion" view whose sink gets clogged does not need a plumber anyway -- he can solve the problem by just pointing out to the sink that it doesn't exist. But.. what if it's the toilet?..

Taiji. Houtian. The world of manifestations. Tao in motion. The exchange must take place. Someone has to cook the lunch, someone has to pay for lunch. No free lunch. And you are talking wuji. Xiantian. The world of the unmanifest. Tao in stillness. The exchange can't take place. No one cooks the lunch, no one has to pay. No free lunch.

...I ask my higher, lower and middle self the following question: did he earn it somehow -- at an earlier point in this life or in a previous incarnation, or by default, by being someone written into the Jade Emperor's Book of Destinies as "the recipient of the free lunch," OR is he stealing someone else's lunch, or someone else's lunch money, or stiffing those who prepared the lunch?.. Then I listen to the response. If my higher, middle and lower selves, senses and sensibilities all go in unison, "he earned it somehow, you may not know how but it is obvious that this is an outstanding person deserving a free lunch and therefore receiving it" -- I accept this answer to my question. If, on the other hand, they go in unison, "he's insecure behind a facade of grandeur, high-strung, suspicious, jumpy -- like a thief -- he must be stealing that lunch" -- then I accept this answer to my question. And then, sometimes, my higher self goes, "I take the fifth," my middle self says, "I withhold a gut feeling -- decide for yourself," and my lower self contributes, "don't worry about it, just make sure I, me, get some lunch -- right now -- and I don't care if anybody else pays for theirs, matter of fact I don't care if you pay for yours, I just want it now, hurry up" -- then I accept "I don't have enough information" as the answer to my question.

Maybe. I've met people of high attainment who were both lucky and good, and they seemed so relaxed and easygoing that interacting with them was a breeze. Zero self-importance...

Loyalty that is in the heart is not compromised by the student learning from other traditions, sects or teachers -- in fact, authentic taoist teachers have always encouraged this. And this loyalty included or not included monetary transactions depending on the circumstances. In a typical case, a mature student often financially supported an aging teacher -- one of my teachers, e.g., still does -- decades after his free-of-charge discipleship. Another one, whose teachers have now left the world, chose a lucrative profession specifically in order to support his two teachers in their old age. Both cases -- people I know personally in China. This kind of loyalty is hardly ever expected of a Western student, and if anyone knows of a case like this in the, e.g., US, I'm all ears. I don't. SO a student whose loyalty does not extend from his heart to his wallet... whose heart says something like, "the buck stops here..." ...better pay in advance or the teacher will starve in his old age. Unless of course we're dealing with someone exempt of such financial mundanities by virtue of being taught directly by a well-to-do immortal. Talk about free lunch. Whoever qualifies doesn't have to worry about the teacher's needs -- loyalty of the heart never gets tested on the level of the wallet, and that's when it truly shines, right?

And traditional shamans too, and traditional hindu practitioners, and everybody traditional in fact. Monotheism is not traditional... and not indigenous to this planet. South and Central American shamanism incorporated Christian saints with utmost ease -- Maria Sabina the famous Mazatec curandera routinely communicated with Jesus with the aid of sacred mushrooms, and Don X___ of my own shamanic initiation sang one of his icaros to "Mother Mary and other off-planet healers." And Mother of the Universe who wanted me to meet the off-planet creators-destroyers as part of my education specifically brought up Jesus and Buddha and suggested that I make peace with both -- and gave me a Buddhist mantra as a reminder. I deferred to Her authority, of course.

I witnessed something similar too. At one point, my husband and I were entertaining some friends at home, and people got interested in seeing some childhood pictures. We produced an album or two, and the first photo to come up showed my husband at the age of about 10 having lunch with his parents and his brother at a cafe, during a summer vacation. One of our guests, his college friend, looks at the picture in total disbelief and goes, "and here, at that table behind yours, another family with two young boys having lunch -- that's me and my brother with our parents." Both families were on vacation in a location hundreds of miles away from their respective homes, and the future friends in that picture never met till years later.

Fuxi the founder of" taoism proper" predates Li Ehr by some 2,300 years. He is the ultimate authority for those who seek to maintain the bridge between shamanism and taoism. Laozi, aka Li Ehr, the teacher of the Ruler, has little to offer to the Subject. "The Way and its Power" is a manual for the powerful, not for the "enlightened" (a buddhist concept with no counterpart in "taoism proper," incidentally. The Dark Mother is in no need of being "enlightened" by sun-worshipping Indo-European spiritual descendants of the Sumerian sun-god cults.)

All I "go saying" was, I have such information about JAJ and don't have it about FH. What I "think" may be an opinion but what I say I "don't know" is an irrefutable fact. I don't know if FH is a shaman, and can't possibly come to the conclusion that he is based exclusively on "he says so." I have great respect for the "superstitious culture" and view all stances of superiority toward its traditional practices as spiritual colonialism.

Some prefer chopsticks for dim sum -- but for dim mak they work quite well too

Uh huh... the "Daoist thing" was, originally, to sacrifice a hundred oxen at a yearly ceremony -- the Shang dynasty built the world's largest altar for the purpose. Incense (from Latin, literally "through the smoke") burning practices predate both taoism and hinduism by at least tens of thousands of years. (A native shaman who initiated me in Peru blew the smoke directly into the top of my head...) As for burning money to send it in its spirit form to the spirit world, it's not "like Christmas prresents in the West" -- it's been picked up by lay taoists but originally it has been, and is, performed by taoist priests on various ritual occasions and has been, and remains, the standard practice of taoist sorcery, talismanic magic, invocational practices, devotional practices, and so on. You are not the first and probably not the last taobum who comes here to bash teachers who teach and to declare that THEY could teach more and better if it wasn't for_______ -- fill in the blanks, for whatever esoteric obstacle they cite as the reason for not teaching. I've always seen contributions of this nature as textbook cases of the sour grapes. I'm not a fan of this approach, to put it mildly -- which doesn't mean that what I have to say on the subject is "complete nonsense" and that I "don't know what I'm talking about." It merely means I have my own POV. Think you can live with that?

This is not a shamanic service. If out of the goodness of your heart you do it, you give of yourself. This is absolutely allowed. Your heart is yours to spend as you see fit. If you give with spirits assisting in the exchange, however, this is a transaction. Ever heard of all those folks in Asia burning tons of paper money when they want something good for their deceased relatives? The idea is, only some super duper special dudes get direct assistance of major deities, the regular shaman or priest or lay practitioner must go via lesser spirits, and these have needs. Come to think of it, super dupers also address the needs of the spirits and deities in all traditions -- e.g. the Gilgamesh version of the Great Deluge has a Noah's counterpart being granted immortality by the gods because after they haphazardly drowned the whole of humanity, there was no one to make offerings and they were starving. This guy made the offerings upon reaching the first patch of dry land and gods and goddesses "rushed in like hungry flies" to the smoke of his incense and the vapors of his booze. Of course the movers and shakers of human history may not have been a match for you, with your connections in the spirit world... that's understandable, but I described something traditional and standard, not something customized for someone special like you.

Relationships between spirits and humans are at least as complex as between humans and humans. Just like in our middle world, there's some rules of engagement in the upper and lower realms, and one simple way to understand these rules is in terms of power exchange. Power, the one and only commodity in the universe with "ten thousand" manifestations, is an inherent property of tao ("The Way And Its Power" is the correct translation of Tao Te Ching). When you claim someone's property, you have to be prepared to give something in return. So, the answer to your first question is no. The law of non-depletion of power supersedes the laws of non-disappearance of matter and energy. No one can give what ultimately isn't theirs to give without reimbursing the true owner. If the spirit likes you and helps you for free, something is taken away from those who are not benefiting from such an advantageous position in life. You get something that may have been theirs instead if you weren't getting the help of the spirit biased in your favor. If you are a beneficiary of such a relationship, think hard and think fast how to give back even if it's not asked of you, or you will inadvertently incur an existential debt -- in this world or in other worlds.

I understand. What I meant was, JAJ puts out authentic teachings, which is a service to community. Which makes him, among other things, a shaman -- a service to community with involvement of the spiritual realm is a shamanic qualification. The service is an expensive one but this is not unheard of, traditional shamans are usually not allowed by the spirit world to serve for free, and taoist sorcerers who offer their services for hire, ditto (has to do with their resources being required on occasion by the spirit world itself, so poverty is discouraged unless the shaman or the sorcerer has other means to repay the spirits for their assistance.) FH, on the other flowing hand, has never mentioned doing anything spirit-mediated for anybody else -- doesn't mean he never does, he just never provided any information to that effect. If he is a shaman indeed, there's got to be an account of the work done for the community. JAJ has provided such an account to my satisfaction, so he IS a shaman in my book. FH will be when/if he does.