Taomeow

I sort of was on the first page. OK, to add some new developments: I often drink Bulletproof coffee these days -- http://www.bulletproofexec.com/how-to-make-your-coffee-bulletproof-and-your-morning-too/ but what I use is either raw butter or raw cocoa butter, or a combo of both. I don't always have the patience to shake it, and don't like to use the blender because I can't keep it hot enough this way. I have a small thermos which I use for a hand shaker. If you're going to try this, open it with great care (use a kitchen towel or some such to cover the top as you open it) because it builds up some pressure in the process and can go pop splattering you with the hot contents. (You've guessed right, it did happen to me the first time I made it this way.) Another new addition to my coffee repertoire, courtesy of a Vietnamese friend -- Vietnamese coffee. (Yes, I know it's not originally Vietnamese, but French and Russian influences left their mark on this non-indigenous but apparently popular brew). This is iced and sweetened with condensed milk. Very yummy, though it's not so much an adult's coffee as a kid's treat IMO. Reminds me of the drink that was popular where I come from in my childhood -- cold coffee with ice cream.

Kevin, "mastery is mastery of the basics" is right, so the disagreement we're having is about what constitutes the basics. From my own studies and practices, wuxing is not a "theory" to apply or not apply, it's part of the basics, that's my main point. It can seemingly be ignored when a problem seems "local" or "unrelated" but a deeper wuxing analysis might reveal what brought about the local problem toward this particular patient to begin with, and prove very relevant. I feel that cutting off this premise is reductionist in the best traditions of Western medicine rather than TCM -- extract and separate a symptom or a set of symptoms, nevermind the bigger picture. I'm told most of modern TCM is taught and practiced this way, so you are backed up by a "new tradition." I'm talking tradition proper which never discards wuxing for any purposes -- even when it is not directly applied, it is always implied. Oh, and I should perhaps mention that most people here don't read Chinese characters, and those who do are usually asked to accommodate those who don't by using pinyin and/or a translation. Also, if you could point me to the source of a Hun-Shen juxtaposition? How is hun not a shen or not part of Shen? Thank you!

They are. And after your edit, my response to your original post makes me look weird.

Spells that always work, hmm... "always" is not doable -- all of reality is 20% stochastic (governed by laws and lawlessnesses of probability), per my taoist sources. However, here's a few I know of that work most of the time: the spell of Saturn (locks our world in linear time); the spell of the Pyramid ("one over many" structures of power); the spell of the Spiral (DNA); the spell of the Fractal (as above so below). Any magic that makes expert use of these (as well as a few other fundamental spells, rather than their assorted derivatives) works at least 80% of the time. Any magic that does not is hit and miss.

Ack! Thank you for the idea, Chang, but this one is in Greek (I do read some Greek). The same Amazon Spain offers the Spanish version for EUR 3.055,08 nuevo (1 oferta) EUR 609,84 de 2ª mano (1 oferta)

Thank you, MM, I'm familiar with the Brain Gym book but it's not the same. The dyslexia one is magical.

I'm trying to decode the Voynich Manuscript. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

Caution to the wind: "You're on the collision course with a large windmill!"

Master Wang Liping said (and I was there when he did) that he used to be a vegetarian, but that was before he came to live "in the world" among other people who are not. (There's very few vegetarians in China, notably buddhist monks.) The context was "when in Rome, do as the Romans do." His lectures on taoist nutrition specified in greater depth what is appropriate to eat toward certain specific goals. Strict vegetarianism is necessary for about a week's period after certain new developments in the practice. For long-term vegetarians by choice, suggestions were made as to what vegetables and roots to include in the diet so as to function optimally. Some of these I'd never heard of before. They are eaten by vegetarians of the kind the master was himself, the knowledgeable ones.

Walking the Pattern!

I see what you mean. And I have to disagree. Recognizing one's own processes without getting down to the level of their underlying roots does not change these processes anymore than knowing you have the flu cures it. "Looking at where we unconsciously distort our perceptions" would mean making the unconscious conscious, no? In a dark room, chasing a black cat who isn't there, illuminating this room with the light of your consciousness won't help catch the cat. You have to be where she is. And that's the level of fundamental qi permutations, or if we do insist on psychologizing (something TCM never did), the level of the preverbal and the non-verbal, pre-analytical and non-neocortical, the room where your contemplating mind can't enter because everything was/is/will be happening there quite independently of its existence and any and all of its bright ideas. (I mean a generic "you" of course, not you personally.) Or even the level of destiny (which is where yin zhi comes into the picture) which can't be reached by awareness of the now, planning for the future, etc. etc., because the cat isn't in THAT room, it's in the back room, knowing in advance where it's going and why but not necessarily informing you. Wuxing analysis helps overcome this difficulty -- if you know which phases are out of whack and how exactly, and set out to correct that, your own processes will change -- no need to contemplate what they were/are like while they were/are out of whack unless doing this normalizes them, which it doesn't. Normalizing your wuxing layout does. Doing it on the level of any ONE shen is pointless, because none are independent of the others and none are out of whack "by themselves" without the cause-effect cascades submerging all the rest. That's the power of the acausal, which wuxing is. The wuxing approach is systemic, that's its beauty and its power, while tweaking with this shen or that alone is like brushing the dust off that mirror -- OK, it's clearer now but it reflects exactly the same picture. To change the moon by treating its reflection in the lake?.. Yes, you can watch it in calm weather and believe it's been pacified. But wait for the storm...

Raine, thank you for your kind words. I haven't thought of blogging things food, but now that you mention it, I'll give some consideration to maybe throwing together in a blog some food-related items from my private discussions. I've pictures 'n all, so I would just have to think of how to organize it all so it's useful for someone, it's pretty eclectic. Stosh, I believe in a multiverse where all possibilities and potentials of this world are realities of the next -- so maybe there's a timeline where love at first bite IS real!

I mostly cook without recipes, but if you are comfortable with imprecise measures (a pinch, a handful, a tad, etc.), just tell me what you fancy and I'll try to tell you how to make it. Let's start with methods and utensils. I don't use anything electrical. No teflon either, or aluminum. It's a wok or a pan for rapid-fire dishes, and an assortment of clay pots (notably a Romertopf) for slow-cooking no-watching-over-it dishes, also heavy enameled cast iron ones for similar purposes but these go on top of the stove rather than in the oven (the choice depends on the season -- I don't use the oven during the summer months, but love to in winter). I own three Chinese cleavers, of which one is a present from a pro and is reputed to be the best in the world. This one cleaver is enough to replace most of kitchen equipment, it can cut and slice anything as though it's a gob of emptiness, grind, flatten, tenderize, mince, even puree. I seldom use anything else, except when I'm making pico de gallo, for which I have a special alligator cutter, and which I like to mix (the pico de gallo, not the cutter) with mashed avocado and sunflower oil and rice vinegar diluted half and half with water (that's Mex-Rus-Asian, technically -- most of my cooking is fusion.) But you can make pico de gallo with an ordinary knife too if you have the patience. I eat some of my foods raw, mostly sashimi. I don't eat grains except when I have a great big craving for tamales, which happens once in a blue moon. I can give you a recipe for my tamales if you like but they do involve what few Americans eat-- pork back lard.

Lingonberries also grow in the northern parts of Eastern Europe. All right, let's have a cooking contest -- and if a touch of szechuan pepper doesn't do it, a touch of dim mak it is!

I know for a fact that you don't need a chef to eat exquisitely. This said, during the rare periods when the masses weren't being either deliberately or carelessly starved by the emperors, peasants in China ate better than emperors, because the emperor was never served anything fresh and seasonal. The imperial pantry was stocked with absolutely all non-perishables in existence plus whatever could be obtained fresh regardless of the season (like meat and poultry and eggs), so on a whim the emperor and his circle could order anything they knew of at any time of day or night and the chefs would immediately get to work producing it. This made it all-important for the chefs to make sure the emperor doesn't ever taste anything fresh and seasonal because should he demand it off season, the chef will have to say no and that's a death sentence. Peasants didn't have this problem. The aristocracy, feudal lords, mandarins, merchants, scholars, doctors, government officials and the rest of the well-to-do, even less so. Cookbooks in China were written by the most celebrated and successful of writers, and the genre was considered serious, on the same level as the most profound works of philosophy, medicine and history and WAY above not only all fiction but also most religious texts, with the exception of the canonized ones. Now if we compare gastronomical experiences in the fish department, I will have to say that I come from the land of river fish, and much of it I caught myself in my own day, and pan-fried it over and then under golden onion rings at a campfire, with a handful of dry wild cherry leaves thrown into the fire for a bit of smokiness, with a side of wild lingonberries mixed with wild strawberries and a few Porcini mushrooms and a potato baked in the ambers, seasoned with raw butter obtained from the friendly cow next door, and any chef anywhere, Chinese, Japanese, French or Zulu, is yet to come close... so don't think that what you can get at the best of restaurants (and I've been to some of the best) is the golden standard.

I see, thanks for your perspective, Kevin. We all have our biases, but only the coolest ones of us know that we have them. Mine are easy to summarize in seven precepts: hetu, luoshu, yin-yang, wuxing, bagua, ganying, I Ching. I would have more trouble separating them in my overall taoist cognitive paradigm than pulling apart the seven stars of the Big Dipper. I mean, nothing is dispensable in this system, nothing optional or superfluous or arbitrary. As for clinical results, maybe you're just talented? I've known a talented TCM practitioner, a taoist traditionalist trained in TCM in both its pre-Rockefellerian-reform, purely non-Western form AND the reformed way it is handled today, who "sees" wuxing phases (e.g. he spelled out my xiantian layout by just looking at me for thirty seconds -- blew my mind.) Much like Tesla, when he would come up with a complex invention and his associates would tell him, OK, this is a great idea, now we need to build a prototype and test it, would shrug and say, sure, go ahead, you can build and test it or not build and not test it, the result will be the same. I know how it works. Of course those who are truly in the position to say "I just know" and have this statement to contain no BS are rare... the rest of us do need to make use of the fool's method of trial and error. Well, I've tested the wuxing theory in my own world with taoist arts, sciences and practices available to me, and so far have found no holes... I might have more to say -- e.g. about the difference between yin zhi and yang zhi striking me as very crucial to discern... basically it's not unlike the difference between your conscious and unconscious mind, true that it's all one snake but how often does a modern head know what its own tail is up to?.. -- later...

Nice topic... Two quickies. 1. Before deciding that wuxing is too neat and tidy and simple to be true, have you considered the following: the place of wuxing phenomena within the ten stems/twelve branches system? such as Dry Wood vs. Moist Wood, Stony Earth vs. Fertile Earth, etc.? phase transitions on each side of the wuxing phases within the bagua system? such as Young Wood vs. Dead Wood, Old Water vs. Fresh Water, etc.? yin-yang transitions of each phase -- yang Fire of a nuclear explosion vs. yin Fire of an obsessive idea (an electrochemical phenomenon which is a manifestation of the Fire phase of qi)? ganying resonances of each phase in the case of a strong presence of another -- Wood with Metal (in the natural world it would be a cactus), Water with Fire (in the human world it would be a bottle of whisky)? 2. One of my favorite areas of alchemical work has to do with establishing a distinction between yang zhi and yin zhi. You don't seem to make this distinction (unless I missed it, in which case I apologize). I would submit that making it (as well as fazing in all I mentioned above and a bit -- OK, a lot -- more) renders an introduction of non-wuxing-affiliated shens, or for that matter of anything else I've ever had a chance to investigate to date, pretty redundant.

I'm with you. These are the best, hands down. As for preparation, combinations, particular choices, I'd take one of the two Chinese approaches I've studied. (I've studied pretty much all the rest too, but like the taoist ways best.) One is broadly taoist and comes from my taoist teacher. The other one is a combo of culinary and TCM and comes from many books I've read on the subject. Of the noteworthy ones I would recommend books by Henry C. Lu, which are pretty comprehensive. I would avoid books by Western popularizers (this includes ethnic Chinese who have been educated primarily in the Western nutritional and medical paradigms and prejudices), none of whom can stay away from their own agenda, whatever that happens to be. I also use the food combo chart from the Peasant Calendar, to the extent I can and need to -- it's been published for a couple thousand years unchanged, and some of the items there are impossible to identify today, which is just as well since I've never seen them and neither did most modern Chinese. But others are current -- e.g. not to eat persimmons with shellfish (both are usually on sale at exactly the same time at our local Asian market, so that's noteworthy.) A Chinese friend who happens to be a foodie coming from a long line of foodies translated it for me or identified what he could from the pictures (it's illustrated with drawings, since originally it targeted a largely illiterate population.) If TTB behave, I'll make it public someday.

But it's way big! What types of foods are you interested in? There's so many approaches to take -- say, "what are the popular Indian ways to cook lamb," or "what kind of foods help cure diabetes," or "what utensils do you use if you don't have a tandoori oven at home," and on and on. To get a lot of it, you would need to invest a lot of time (years), and to get a little, you would have to specify what's of particular interest to you!

Chinese don't cut it? After having invented that bocho you're so prudently wary of? "Chinese cuisine" is a combination of words that means nothing, actually, unless you specify the regional, tribal, ethnic, social milieu of consumption, the time period (which for some recipes that are still going strong spans millennia), climate zone, elevation above sea level, proximity to the coast line, religious affiliations (some Chinese Muslims cook Indian like there's no tomorrow), etc.etc.. It is not just the biggest body of food knowledge in existence, it also empirically contains all the rest within it. There's regions in the mountains where traditionally they have grown grapes for wine for centuries, and made real classy wines with these, which the rest of the world thinks are a French thing. "The rest of the world" including the rest of China that is not familiar with this particular region and its traditions. They hardly eat any seafood in Xi'an and almost nothing but on the island of Lanyi. And on and on. And what can be more spiritual than understanding the qi of foods and its interactions with the qi of the human body? I've seen many a menu in many an ordinary restaurant where an item will be presented as "nourishing the lungs" or "opening the pericardium meridian" or "supplying yang qi to the kidneys." I guess our understanding of "spiritual" may be on different pages. I don't find things that disconnect one's spirit from one's body particularly spiritual, which is why I'm not into Indo-European spirituality to begin with.

I know and use all of these in my own cooking. "Not a big expert on things Indian" was a statement fueled by humility, not ignorance. I actually had an Indian food guru from Southern India for several years. He owned a little Indian grocery close to where I lived, and since I was almost the only non-Indian to shop there, he took interest in my interest and eventually started teaching me for real. Not just the mundane stuff like garam masala, but absolutely everything he carried -- amchur to neem to asaphoetida to kachoori methi to guggul to dishes with bitter melon (really tricky!), with extensive lectures on the healing properties of absolutely each and every item by itself and its vast and extensive combinations to achieve other effects. The guy was an encyclopedia and all the knowledge was first hand, from family taught by generations that went before. I made a habit of reserving an hour and a half for shopping there, it was a one-on-one transmission. I could teach Indian cooking because of that... but my palate leans toward China (I mean Chinese food in China, not American Chinese) , Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, and oh, Taiwan! The mother of fusion! Don't dis my spirituality, bro, I cook like a pro.

Holy shit. And here I am with my Rémy Martin for which I don't even have a lemon!

Not a big expert on things Indian... Haven't had Indian in a while -- nothing noteworthy in the current vicinity, so I couldn't tell. What's your opinion? I frequented an Indian place that was very good on the East coast, but that was before I trained my palate for hot spicy, so I ordered on the mild side. I used to be prejudiced against hot spices and attributed their attraction to the overall numbing-out of people's senses and folks seeking to feel something -- anything -- by going to all kinds of silly extremes. I still believe it's true for some people in some cases. But now I also know it's not the beginning, middle and end of the spicy story, it's just one possible chapter. Eating these foods can actually awaken the numbed-out feelings, it may start with just the palate but the overall exposure to non-bland and otherwise extraordinary sensations is beneficial, it can radiate into other areas and whet one's appetite for experimenting with more aspects and peculiarities of the "alive" state than what the current common denominator dictates. But I digress...

Spiritual=bland?.. in every possible sense -- gastronomic, sexual, sensual, intellectual, aesthetic?.. Now that's a legacy of a few thousand years of instruction of the masses to the effect that enjoying something (god forbid) automatically makes them unworthy of something better. However, newest discoveries of cognitive neuroscience confirm that healthy, most energy-efficient learning happens via pleasure, and unhealthy convoluted and highly wasteful of energy kind, via pain. I don't believe spiritual learning is an exception to this rule. Of course if you want to try it both ways, spicy dishes is it. Pain AND pleasure. The lesson I found therein is, spices of the world tell you something about the soul of peoples that use them. Compare Thai spicy with Mexican spicy, e.g.. There's a major difference there qi-wise. Thai spicy (if you go really high on a scale of 1 to 10 -- say 8) hits you in the midbrain and paralyzes all of your lower brain except for the amygdala (an organ in charge of extreme emotions, notably profound terror) and then goes away as fast as it came on, leaving you feeling reborn and tearfully grateful for having regained your life and breath. Mexican spicy of the same intensity, on the other hand, stays with you for a long, long time, easing off very slowly, very gradually. You're done eating, you would like to perhaps forget all about what you did to yourself twenty minutes ago, but it won't let you. It has heng...

Dorian, you have to listen to the voice that told you "come back," it's the voice of ganying, and it speaks further to those who listen but stops talking to those who ignore it. Perhaps there's something you will need to find here someday, or else someone might need to find what you have, or what you are?.. Who knows. Have a great "for good" stretch but "come back!" The voice will tell you when...