Taomeow

I thank everyone for the feedback, explanations and the big picture. Much appreciated.

Thanks, BKA. I was just wondering if there is an autopilot method for threads, in existence or in the pipeline, as efficient as the red Report button for individual posts. Incidentally, since stepping down as a mod, I only tried reporting something once by hitting the Report button, and there was no response and no action, so I don't know anymore if the red button is working either. Didn't follow up because members have lives too. So, trying to find out what currently works, and what works best.

I meant someone else. If trolls troll the hell out of the rest of the forum, there's a zillion other forums for "general" topics, there's plenty of room to run and hide all across the world wide popsicle-sucking web. I don't want this happening at the taoist forum. Every time Quanzhen is mentioned, it happens. Every time Longmen Pai is mentioned, it happens. If the new mods ever saw Battlestar Galactica, they would appreciate why "it all happened before, and it will all happen again" is a very sad quote, a comment on unavoidable, unstoppable destruction. Well, at least I hereby inform them that it all happened before, some of it with the same players, and every time it happens, the forum loses the intangibles -- all the potential contributions from posters with a clue who get trolled and hounded out of any desire to contribute. Not claiming that I am one of them, I would like to mention, just a propos, that I haven't started a taoist-proper topic in a long time, and have stopped talking about my main practice altogether, and I know for a fact I'm not the only one (PMs from the overtrolled and underprotected.) But I've been around this block, I've seen it all here and as many times as I was going to leave, I remembered that "it all happened before and it will all happen again," and this either soothed me or paralyzed the "delete bookmark" click hovering, swooping down... can't quite tell which. Maybe I'm just a creature of habit, all cats are, but not all taoists -- some vote with their feet as soon as they get burned once. Not everybody can tolerate badmouthing of their schools and teachers by online bots or whatever those programs are that they are running, these trolling automatons. Have we lost the War on Trolling or something?..

Definitely not Taomeow's advice. Taomeow advocated translating Quan Zhen as Quanzhen and supplying extensive footnotes to explain what it is, and employing a Quanzhen member ONLY to accomplish the task.

I wouldn't doubt it if it could be verified. Theoretically there could be other transmitters, Friend offered a few names, but do you have any sources on hand to supply lineage information with names of their teachers, dates they studied with them, places where it took place, or any sources corroborating the claims? With at least some monks and nuns who are members of this lineage I know that they don't claim having learned from another transmitter. I met the (second) translator of the Dragon Gate/Wizard bio into Russian, and asked her how she herself found out about Wang Liping and what caused her to undertake the translation. She told me she was traveling in China as part of some cultural studies endeavor, stayed at a taoist monastery for a while, and witnessed some practices taoist monks were engaged in which fascinated her on some "qi level" or other. "What are you practicing?" she asked. They gave her that very book and said, "This."

White Cloud Monastery which was not functioning in maoist China and got restored when the political winds had changed is a communist enterprise with party functionaries given a crash course and appointed to serve as taoist monks. Wang Liping's connection to Quanzhen is an unbroken documented lineage of direct transmission from Qiu Chang-chun, the founder of Longmen Pai. You don't have to be impressed before you are informed, get informed first, decide if you are impressed later, no problem. You said you spent five minutes on a search. That's not enough. I recommended a book, not a five-minute search, and as for me personally, I invested ten years or so of taoist studies and practices before getting to a place from which Longmen pai looked good. And even then I didn't choose it, circumstances lined themselves up and I was able to do some work for the school first, get to study later. That's how it sometimes goes if it was meant to be. If it wasn't, do another five minute search and arrive at your destiny from there, you're the boss of you, no question.

Look, you supposedly asked for information on Quanzhen, I told you, briefly, what I knew. If I knew it was a bait-and-switch deal, I wouldn't have.

And Liu I-Ming was retired and in his late 60s when he first had his chance to sit down and do a taoist practice. And Sun Bu-er was 57 when she had her first chance to go study with a taoist master. And it was very common throughout history. Poets wrote about pining for "blue robes with scarlet clouds," the taoist attire, but few could pursue this until they dedicated sometimes a whole lifetime to getting to a place whence to take the first step. Taoism is not a convenience product...

Maybe wait?.. I had to wait till my kids grow up before spending even a penny on myself and taking a paid lesson in anything at all for the first time in my life.

I am not familiar with this, but from its description "Nine Palaces Solar Qigong" seems to me as a system its author invented. "Nine Palaces" are not "openings in the body" (though there's correspondences in the body), "working with solar energy" is not a taoist practice at all (the taoist counterpart would be working with the energy of the sun, the moon and the stars), the rest is not specific enough to evaluate. No, this is not Longmen Pai, but you have to keep in mind that Wang Liping was teaching publicly since the 1980s and some of his more ambitious, put it this way, students decided to launch their own operations, incorporating what they learned into whatever they did with it to make up their own "authentic" systems. I know two such stories at least, both potentially very damaging to the real Longmen Pai, but I'm sure I don't know them all. About Baolin Wu I know too little to tell if there's any Longmen Pai there and if there is, how much of it.

Every master I know who comes from China (not Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, or the US) was poorer than most of you can begin to imagine for the longest time, and every one of them is doing very well financially today. Every one of them is authentic, hard-working, and has unique "goods" to offer to those who are capable of prioritizing their lives so as to get them. All of their learning and practice predating their financial success by several decades happened while they were living in abject poverty. I have only one thing to say to all those countless middle-class freebie seekers who, never having known hunger, back-breaking labor since early age, or any material privations whatsoever, continuously launch diatribes against masters going "commercial." And that is, if it was up to me, I'd take everything you ever had through no merit of yours, just because you were born into more cushioned circumstances, and take it back in time and give to those kids who are now elderly men and women finally living close to your standard of living which you consider your birthright and which is in reality your dumb luck. I'd eliminate dumb luck and make this world a meritocracy. But of course it's only a dream... ...for now.

I'm not one of the lads, but I hope I'll do. Quanzhen is a branch of taoism comprised of seven schools. Its lineage originates with Wang Chongyang who learned from the taoist immortals Zhongli Quan and Lu Dongbin in the 12th century. He had seven disciples who each founded a taoist school. Throughout its long and rich history, Quanzhen alternated between periods of great influence and periods of persecution and destruction, which is why it has the deepest roots in Chinese culture and also retains the protective tradition of keeping some of its key teachings secret and available only via oral transmissions to the initiated. Quanzhen was the first monastic branch of taoism, following the Buddhist-influenced separation of lay practices and formal religious institutions. It remained vital despite this turn, with many taoists of other school seeing it as a must to come spend at least some time in Quanzhen communities, due to its development of a vast body of teachings and techniques on self-cultivation. One of these was zuobo, a communal practice of alchemical meditation. This is what one may find today when getting a foot in the door... and often assume, incorrectly, that it's some modern twist -- nope, it's authentic and was developed in the spirit of Quanzhen's overall "democratic" leanings -- the practice itself would make whoever is special special, long-lived, with many "supernatural" abilities, and ultimately immortal if everything goes right. The only Quanzhen school I am familiar with personally is Longmen Pai. The current transmitter, master Wang Liping, is well known, so you can find the information in many places besides TTB. Thomas Cleary translated his biography written by two of his disciples a number of years ago, it would be a very useful read if you want to know more -- "Opening The Dragon Gate: The Making of a Modern Taoist Wizard." Hope it helps.

Very cool, thanks for telling the story. Eleven, wow. Your kundalini must have thought... let me guess... "what have you been smoking?.." I would never touch lab-made drugs, but I have to be extra careful with sacred plants too because I'm super sensitive. My first encounter was -- you won't believe it -- with belladonna, prescribed by a doctor in the old country in the form of eye drops. The doctor told me to drink a glass of milk with these, which was part of the protocol -- to detoxify the "side effects." I took the drops with me going on vacation, which took place somewhere where I couldn't get any milk. So the first night I used the drops, I was thrown into my first dream-vision, and have had them ever since, roughly once a year, sometimes once every couple of years -- in any event, the venue was established and the effects were permanent and blended organically into everything else that happens in my life -- which I know as a number of states of consciousness that have little in common with each other: ordinary waking states, extraordinary waking states, ordinary dreams, extraordinary dreams, and dream-visions that are in a class of their own. The first dream-vision I got courtesy of belladonna terrified me, and when I woke up I found myself in two worlds simultaneously -- the ordinary waking world was there, quite intact, but the vision world was also there, every bit as real. It was like that for as long as it took me to understand that I was supposed to make a choice -- which reality to commit to and which one to abandon. I chose the ordinary, and the other one immediately disappeared from my access (though never from my memory). Pretty educational for a 20-something with no religious or spiritual background whatsoever and nobody but atheists in four generations that went before. Some otherworldly power or other decided that the buck... er, the agnosticism... stops right there I guess.

Great, thank you, Dawei! Put like that, the character comes very close to describing what quanzhen is about. It even tells the story of the methods of cultivation! My god, what a language! It "reveals and conceals" in one breath, or rather in one flash, just like the old Indo-European word "black," which meant "shining white," "a flash of light," or "flashing in various bright colors!" We lost this way to use our language... and in my experience, modern Chinese lost this way to use theirs, although it preserved ancient wisdom much better... but ancient wisdom just doesn't take root in a mind thwarted by misuse and abuse, not cultivated to match the mind of the original creators. And because it no longer comes naturally, taoist schools in search of restoring the original, whole, true, complete, real and perfect human mind developed their methods and methodologies... Quanzhen is one such methodology, is what it is. Such is truth...

The brilliant Summa Technologiae by Stanislaw Lem (published in 1964) gives an example of the kind of communication that is impossible to translate. A telegram (the book was written in 1964 when there were telegrams -- by the way, translate this one to someone born in 2000!) intercepted by, say, a Zeta Reticuli UFO (don't remember which hypothetical alien race was used as an example in the original) reads, "Granny died, funeral Wednesday." They have a dictionary, they read the telegram, and here's what they come up with (recreating from memory): Granny: a version of "grandmother" used by an immature (not fully unfolded at the time of its creation) earthling human speaking one of the earthling human languages known as English. Language: the earthlings' method of communication via transmitting and receiving particular sounds, which can also be presented as visual symbols. Visual: perceived and analyzed via a processing mechanism that can discern a narrow band of electromagnetic wavelengths known to the earthlings as "visible light" or "visible spectrum." Visible light: the range a human "eye" is capable of perceiving -- 390 to 700 nm (see also Earthlings' Measuring Units.). Grandmother: the species under scrutiny replicate by what they call "sexual reproduction." This means two specimens combine their genetic material to create a third one. The two specimens are of different "genders." A "gender" is a set of biological differences, binary in nature. Only a binary combination of "opposite" "genders" produces a third one. One of the members of the binary set is a "man" and the other, a "woman." Each of them in its turn had a binary set of "parents" that produced them. Each "parent" had a set of parents. The "female" unit of the set of parents of parents is called a "grandmother," which is the same as "granny." (This is by far not all that should go into explaining what a "granny" means to an earthling, but that's a start.) If "granny" requires such extensive footnotes to explain it to a species that does not reproduce sexually, communicate verbally, or use eyes to perceive electromagnetic waves, imagine explaining "died" to a species that is immortal (for an earthling example, a lobster is -- unless killed, it does not die of natural causes, but imagine a species that can't die of unnatural causes either, due to peculiarities of their biological organization), and then explain "funeral" to them after they were unable to grasp "died," and then explain "Wednesday" to them if they don't have a concept of time or do have a concept of time but not of our linear record-keeping nature, and you will see how "translations" are actually an ultimate impossibility unless you are dealing with an identical creature in the target and in the source. This has deep and vast philosophical implications... which I leave to your imagination. But if we do not require identical match between the source and the target to be understood, then we should remember that Chinese and English are both human earthlings, so it should be a tad easier to explain one to the other than to, say, a Zeta Reticuli...

Here's something most of you guys/gals may never have sampled -- a Kyrgyz traditional dish called dymlyama. The instructions in the video are in Russian but everything that's used and done is shown clearly so you can replicate it. The meat in this recipe is lamb, but I made it with all kinds and it works with anything, even turkey, provided you have some animal source fat on the bottom so nothing burns. (I ask the butchers at the local HFS for fat trimmings, they usually have them on hand and give them to me for free. I keep these in the freezer and use as needed.) Of course lamb is your first choice. The spices used are any "oriental" blend you know and like, e.g. you can use curry powder or garam masala powder, plus extra black pepper. You sprinkle spices and salt over each layer, a little at a time. The towel to wrap over the lid should be wet (not dripping wet though). (Fire hazard, be careful, don't set it on fire. Don't use it if in doubt.) Cook on low for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, depending on the size of your wok and the amount of ingredients. A large heavy cast iron pot will work if you don't have a wok (which ideally should be of cast iron too). I haven't tried it in any lightweight cookware, and recommend having something of cast iron on hand for any and all dishes you don't want to monitor too closely, or to damage by uneven heat.

Some of the greatest deities of the taoist pantheon (tianzun ) were not Han Chinese. Even for Guanyin (Kwan Yin), Chinese was a foreign language she didn't master till she became a taoist goddess.

Thank you, Mark. The second best coffee I had, after the first best I make every day with my ibrik , was the first coffee I ever had -- my parents had a German made drip coffee maker, a bit similar to what they use for espresso here, of the kind that still exists somewhere I'm guessing, but not here, not now. It took a loooong time to drip, took its time. I still remember the sounds it made toward the end that signaled it must be turned off (didn't have an automatic shut-off switch), the aromatic steam wafted into my room, and ever since I was 14, when I started drinking it too in the morning, this aroma signified that whatever else will happen in the course of the new-coming day, the first thing that will happen will be good.

An aside: I much prefer simple transliterations (quanzhen, dantien, taiji) with extensive footnotes to any and all translations of key terms that simply don't translate. Especially when the translator builds his or her understanding (usually derived from some other system, one he or she is already familiar with) into how things will be translated. So we wind up with "chakras" used interchangeably with "dantiens," "prana" or "energy" for qi, "spirit" for shen, "five elements" for wuxing, it's a huge, huge mess. A samovar is not a big tea kettle, not a furnace for making tea, not a percolator, not a tea pot, not a steam engine, not a transmission, not a rocket, not a spade. A samovar is a samovar. Translate it and destroy anyone's chance to understand what it is. How much more true for quanzhen, ling, houtian... As much more true as these notions are more complex than a samovar. Yet the cavalry attacks on the fortress of specialized terms never cease. Translators imagine that the fortress is hanging in emptiness, not surrounded by anything in particular, and is made of paper sheets mined from a dictionary. In reality it stands firmly on the ground that gave rise to it, particular architects erected it with a specific goal in mind, the stones that went into building it were procured from a mountain nearby, the wells whence the inhabitants draw their water are all local and placed in specific spots just so, otherwise no one could live in that fortress. It gets all its food supplies from the nearby village. It is guarded against intruders by a well-trained army possessing inside information of its layout. It is impenetrable from the outside and can only be known for what it is from the inside. And even then there's secret chambers that even the inner inhabitants are not privy to. And even then there's dungeons where a visitor might get trapped and never see anything of that fortress save for the inside of his prison cell. And there's a vast network of tunnels connecting this fortress to -- other fortresses, other dimensions, freedom?.. Who knows. You have to have been there done that. So, let's call it complete, real, all true, all false, perfect, imperfect, a transmission, a spade -- it does not take us an inch closer to the inside of the fortress of quanzhen. Alternatively, call it quanzhen and gain access inside -- and then tell the world what it is, in as many words as needed, which is as many as it takes, not one word more, not one word less. That's translation in my book. Open a samovar, look inside. Put some pine cones in the heating shaft in the center, light them with some kindling, boil some water, make some pine-flavored tea concentrate, and so on -- voila, you know what a samovar is. Will you still want to call it something else rather than a "samovar?" What in the name of tap-dancing gods for? A native speaker who knows a million ways to point out how a samovar is not a tea kettle but has never seen or used one should stay out of the fortress of the samovar. Word.

I know, sorry about that -- I usually think of the next person to pick the last line -- but I had to go with it because that one was IMO my best haiku so far. When casting my line, I hope the whale will notice, panic when he does.

Study how it's done -- the theory and the practical examples of excellent translations -- and focus on two things: 1. The theory calls for creating the matching context instead of the matching word. You have to match meaning for meaning, not term for term. It's very possible to express "a nephew on the father's side" in English -- as you just did -- by using a few extra words. You should never assume that it's an inferior way to go about it, because there will be many examples of the opposite, where you can't express an English word without using several words of Chinese to render it correctly. I seriously suggest that you study some theory and methodology of translation if you are going to do it. It's an art which, to be executed at a high level, requires a talent AND an education -- in general linguistics, stylistics, theoretical grammar, lexicology, what not. Anything that you want to do at a high level demands a lot of you. A sushi chef studies for 8 to 12 years -- do you think making a palatable text out of non-native ingredients is either easier than making sushi, or, alternatively, "impossible?" -- you seem to fluctuate between asserting you are the only one who can do it AND asserting that it can't be done because Chinese can't be "hammered" into English. I submit both positions are wrong and, moreover, are in an oxymoronic relationship to each other, not to confuse with "moronic." 2. Study the best examples of the best translations in existence but do NOT demand of them that they are as good as the originals. With truly great works it is impossible to accomplish in any language (unless the translator is even greater than the author and the translated work is better than the original. With less-than-great works, incidentally, it happens. I've read tons of American novels in Russian that I thought were great until I read them in English, LOL.) You have to do the best you can, but you can't expect Laozi in English to be as good as Laozi in Chinese -- so accept the built-in limitations and still do it the best way it can be done. This most certainly means forgetting all about the dictionary. If you still need the dictionary, you are not ready to translate something of this depth. You need to have created a vast and magnificent background knowledge to undertake the task. You need to be an ace in both cultures, English speaking and Chinese speaking, on top of being a proficient practicing taoist, to create something that you can truly be proud of. Something that may outlive you -- like Wilhelm's I Ching, albeit full of assorted shortcomings, is still a wide enough door to enter into this magnificent world, take the first step, stay a while... it lives on long after the imperfect translator is gone, but his imperfections in this case are nowhere near as important as the fact that he invested decades of study (under a taoist teacher) and thoughtful creative work into every single line. It's still imperfect -- but he did enough, let someone else come and improve on what he did. Are you ready to be this someone else vis a vis every Chinese text ever translated into English? Or at least one such text? Maybe you will be one day. But right now you are not, so I do recommend some creative humility and some fertile self-doubt for starters... and some linguistic and taoist education the traditional way. Oh, and a realistic look at how talented you are. Have your peers in high school ever sat mesmerized, holding their breaths, through your presentation of a mundane classroom-assignment essay?.. If they have, you may have what it takes, and it may be time to do something real with it, instead of using the "I'm Chinese and therefore know all things Chinese better than any of you anyway" defensive excuse for not shining the way you want to shine. Sorry for the long sermon... you asked, and you probably regret having asked, but here it is anyway.

No, of course you are not as bad, but still you would do a much better job translating from English into Chinese, wouldn't you agree? The Chinese text you'd produce would sound Chinese to a Chinese. When you translate Chinese into English, however, the English you produce does not always sound English to a native speaker. (Or a non-native one like me, who is pretty bilingual and yet would never undertake translating my own Russian poetry into English -- way too difficult! )

But the main problem with translations of taoist texts and taoist terminology (not just ChiDragon's, it's pretty ubiquitous) is that most translators are not taoists and they don't get it right because they don't know the technical side of the process and what is meant by a particular term when a taoist uses it. It is very different from just a native Chinese speaker using a word. Esoteric meanings elude non-esoterically educated translators. Damn, even non-esoteric meanings that are culturally and historically different from contemporary ones... What do you think "polishing the mirror" means to a native speaker of Chinese who never polished a brass mirror by rubbing it against another brass mirror, most probably hasn't even seen one in his life?.. What do you think a translator is going to assume when encountering this in a text on cultivation?

Nope, Dawei was asserting the opposite, and I concur. If you take a trip to China, you will encounter examples of native Chinese speakers translating things into English without being proficient enough in English all over the place, and I guarantee these translations will knock your socks off. I will never forget the mysterious "circumstance begins with you" written on trash bins, or the even more mysterious "mind connects to mind" on a pack of toilet paper rolls, but the greatest of them all was the plunger I bought at the local supermarket when our toilet got clogged. The plunger was, in English, designated as The Sucker, and laudatory text praising its sturdiness and durability went something like, "put it to the mouth, many times, the Sucker will suck and suck and suck!" But if China is too far, go to Ranch 99 Market to read some labels on some products. I still have a picture in my phone from their fish department which designates a particular fish, in large bold letters, as "Red Cod Idiot." I don't know why the poor fish was dissed like that by a native speaker of some other language, and I wound up not buying it -- I like cod but I was afraid that "idiot" refers to whoever buys it rather than the fish itself, which didn't look particularly dumb to me, no dumber than the rest... See what I mean?..