Taomeow

Apathy is not an emotion in taoism. It's a symptom of qi deficiency, toxicity, stagnation, or blockage. The taoist stance of not caring to get involved in the hectic activities of pursuing "fame and fortune" does not stem from apathy. Taoists view certain things as useless, futile, not worth the expenditures of emotional or physical energy to get entangled with. But toward things that they don't see this way, they tend to be quite passionate. Dedicated cultivation, practice, study of taoist arts and sciences can't happen if one is apathetic. E.g., avoiding deficiency, toxicity, stagnation or blockage -- these are things taoists are passionate about, but it is not the kind of passion that will necessarily show on the surface.

People who would abuse a substance there go for alcohol or man-made lab-created addictive drugs, same as here. Much worse than here in fact because the majority of the population is desperately poor, trapped in dead end social and economic situations, and stripped of all hope for a better future. So substances that cater to despair and reinforce one's bonding with it by giving a brief relief and then bringing it on with an even greater ferocity, demanding a repeat and an increase of the dose, abound at the urban scene. Whereas plants/roots/shrooms/herbs in question are impossible to abuse. They are not addictive. They do not form psychological or physical dependency. They are not fun to take and neither promise nor deliver any easy and carefree times upon ingestion, and in fact often give a horrible time to the body and the psyche. Ayahuasca causes out of this world diarrhea and nausea in most people and tastes worse than your worst nightmare. It taps into emotions no one seeks for recreational purposes such as absolute and ultimate terror, unbearable compassion, self-demolishing humility, and a profound sense of inadequacy of one's life, on top of "shamanic death" episodes that subjectively can last an eternity, and on and on. The reason for repeat intake, which in most cases requires a lot of courage, is a realization, post factum, of the regained or improved physical, mental, emotional, or social health; deeply satisfying cognitive breakthroughs whose ecstatic value is in direct proportion to how many "damned" questions that may have pestered one all her life suddenly get answered, and how many unsolvable problems simply dissolve into nothing. Then there's an influx of creative inspiration, an improvement or a disentaglement of difficult relationships in the family, and so on -- and in some cases, an opening up of a spiritual path that leads one toward some traditional shamanic activities, notably healing. There's no reasons for taking these plants that even remotely resemble the reasons addictive substances are taken by people who abuse them.

That's exactly right. It's like a mother-child or teacher-student or magician-apprentice relationship in the case of ayahuasca, to the power of having a relationship with not just a mother but Mother of the Universe, not just a teacher but Teacher of All That Is, not just a magician but Magical Change Herself. And you still enter in this relationship as you, and that's why no two such relationships are alike. I've read and had orally related to me many experiences of others having had this relationship. The only ones that resembled mine at all were from some indigenous people, I had nothing at all happen that paralleled anything any Westerner ever got out of the encounter. But that's not because I'm special I don't think -- yet it has everything to do with who I am, with my values, with what I had shaped myself into by my own effort prior to the experience, and with what I was ready to accept (and also what I was ready to reject, lose, devalue...) She took me where she doesn't take people who haven't had a long stretch of development in that particular direction that I happen to have had. They would make no heads or tails of it. At one point she wanted to push me beyond where I had the breadth of consciousness to go and I begged her to stop. (And that's why when She asked how far I wanted to expand my consciousness -- to the end of galaxy, to the end of the multiverse? -- I said, no no no no no, to the edges of the rain forest, and let's stop there. She agreed grudgingly, like a teacher who defers to a not-too-ambitious student. But I knew what I was doing. I didn't want to get overwhelmed. I wanted to be tested at 75% of capacity, and She tried to take me to 100% again and again, and every time I asked her to stop. 75% is from my taoist training. I was who I was when I was with Her, She didn't cancel who I am... except to 75% of my capacity to be non-me. ) And because I chose the rain forest, She said, well, what can we do here since you don't want to go farther? How about I teach you to turn the rain on and off, and the wind? You know, there's this hurricane coming, you'll be there when it comes, you could use the controls then if you learn well. And She turned the rain and wind on and off and patiently taught me how to do it for four hours. And it was better than anything that ever happened to me before or after in my entire life to date. The rain and the wind were real. The next day (the lesson was taking place between 4 and 8 am) the little river where the shaman has his home swelled up and flooded out of its banks and whoever wanted to get anywhere had to wear thigh-high rubber boots, which were also real, and mighty dirty. Was I under the "influence" two years later when I used the technique? I hadn't had as much as a beer in the interim. The only substance in my system was a cup of tea. And the knowledge was still there. It's like riding a bicycle... But have you noticed I am not asserting I did it? All I'm asserting is I followed instructions and what was supposed to happen happened but I have no proof it happened because I was following instructions?.. I'm not ambitious at all as a weather shaman, I don't need to prove not just to others but even to myself that I can do it. There's no other way to tell the story than the way I told it: how it actually happened. "Making sense" of it I leave to others, and believing it's all nonsense, to still others.

I have no idea what drugs can or cannot do to the mind to fool it, I've never taken a drug in my life. I was talking about a sacred plant. An entheogen. Which is a creation of nature and predates human life, human mind, and everything the human mind is capable of thinking up by hundreds of millions of years. The human mind was designed with receptors for the keys contained in this sacred plant. It has no such receptors for drugs. Drugs break stuff when they jam their distorted man-made molecules into the brain and damage and fool the mind. Sacred plants open doors that they have the keys for and expand one's humanity, one's natural birthright human abilities. E.g., ayahuasca has a compound which was later renamed harmine but the first researchers of this alkaloid called it telepathin. Guess why. Because She either initiates or, more likely, restores the lost ability to communicate mind to mind in humans, and between humans and other life forms on this planet and beyond. No drug can do that. Drugs are not part of nature. Mind to mind communications are. Our species has lost this normal natural ability, but nature has keys to restore it. Just one example. To discuss what someone else has experienced or not -- you of all people should know better?.. Haven't you been told that it's all in your mind without any substances involved, drugs or entheogens? You didn't seem to like it unless I misunderstood your reactions. Me, I don't particularly care, the only thing someone else telling me what I experienced or not does is proves to me that they are talking outta their non-experience.

When I told a taoist teacher of mine (who, for reasons you'll understand three lines down, shall remain unnamed) about my shamanic initiation, he told me something interesting. He said that in his lineage a Chinese brew equivalent in its effects to ayahuasca has been used continuously for 900 years and his own teachers made him take many sacred plants preparations in the course of his training. He said that he doesn't teach that part or any of the external-to-internal alchemy and that I don't have to be explained why because I get it. I asked him how much this powerful and ancient lineage has lost due to closing down one important venue of traditional training within the system. He said that for some, nothing, and for some, everything. In any event, ayahuasca told me I will be on the East Coast when a hurricane comes and taught me how to diffuse it. This particular lesson lasted four hours and they were the best four hours of my life to date. Sure enough, I had to be on the East coast last year when Irene the hurricane came. Vast damage was predicted, thousands were evacuated. I used the technique She taught me and there was no serious damage and no fatalities. Did I really do it? Sheesh, where's the control group when you need it?.. Did ayahuasca really save thousands of lives that day by training me in weather damage control? And if She did, how the hell can THIS be proved?.. "A sage comes like the spring, benefitting all beings." I don't mean I'm a sage of course, but She called me to do some of her spring-bringing work. Yeah... Drug my ass.

A medical history and an autopsy that rule out other causes would do. Like I said, I haven't seen a single case where it was proved with ayahuasca the way it can be proved with a gunshot wound, a cyanide pill, or a peanut contamination in a pecan cookie ingested by someone with a history of severe peanut allergy that a particular agent or substance entering the body did indeed cause death. And believe me, I looked for such proof before traveling to Peru. Better safe than sorry.

I think it's possible that anything can cause death. Ayahuasca is far below water (many thousands of drowning deaths every year) or peanuts (1,3% of the population have peanut allergy, the leading cause of death of all food allergies) or peanut butter (the leading cause of choking death in nursing homes and hospitals) and infinitely less dangerous than any prescription or OTC drug you might take (the leading cause of death in the US), which would absolutely make any case of it actually striking someone down (which still remains to be proved) at the rate of a millionth of a percent of other dangerous stuff out there not newsworthy if the news we're fed weren't skewed. You are not a conspiracy theorist, that's laudable. You are a coincidence theorist. You believe that there's no connection between the lowest-danger substance being reported when there's a slight unproved chance that it may be implicated in a death, while top-danger substances causing thousands of deaths daily are not being reported, between this choice of what to report and how, and any ulterior motives at all. Fine. Coincidence theorists rule the world... for now. This world, which of course they have made perfect for everyone except a few misguided conspiracy theorists who see the connections where there ain't any. Kudos.

Great story. I have a very cool Laughing Buddha netsuke but the origins are mundane (ebay ). However, the mystery lives on. A whole bunch of years ago I had a dream-vision (different from just a dream) where a monk quite similar to the one you encountered sold me a little figurine of a sleeping cat for a nominal fee. I kept thinking about it and pondering for a while, everything from the dream was as vivid in my memory as a real-life event I lived through. Then I came across an article about an ancient temple of the Sleeping Cat in Japan, Nemuri Neko, and there were pictures, and there on the facade of the temple was my figurine from the dream, a full-size version. (The cat's face looks a bit like that of the black and white cat in your pictures, doesn't it?)

There you have it. I am. You are not against drugs, I am against drugs. You call a not-a-drug a drug, I don't. Indeed, nothing to talk about, because we don't have our terms straight, let alone our values. Oh, and the word "alien" quoted out of context is supposed to make someone who used it look lacking in "sensible and balanced" conversation abilities?.. I can assure you I used it metaphorically. (I wouldn't use it any other way unless I know who I'm talking to. And especially if I do. )

That's not just possible, that's very likely with a DRUG, but ayahuasca is not a drug. (Seth is spot on with "faulty logic" used as a weapon of brainwashing -- the population has long been conditioned to blur the difference between drugs and sacred plants. Drugs are for-profit designer molecules not encountered in nature, used by confused brainwashed idiots toward no good cause whatsoever other than fill the emptiness and meaninglessness of their lives with "something different." Sacred plants are natural pathways to being human which we as a species have evolved with and owe our very brain structure and capabilities to. Not the same.) Let me tell you how and what for ayahuasca was used all across Central America before the takeover of the continent by the alien agenda. When a woman of the tribe got pregnant, her husband took ayahuasca and the latter taught him an icaro, a song to sing to the baby in the womb. He would then teach this song to the whole tribe, as the true song of this new human being to come into their midst. When the baby was born, she was given ayahuasca (just like we give injections of dead bugs and mercury into the bloodstream toward our own purposes for this baby, right upon birth). The whole tribe then sang the baby's personal spirit song to her, greeting her and letting her know that she has come somewhere where everybody knows, loves, and accepts her. This procedure is still followed in the tiny vestiges of the remaining indigenous local cultures. Ayahuasca taken in this context by a newborn baby has never killed one. There's no "overdose," it's not a "recreational drug," it can't be taken for fun and abused. What it's taken for is a quest for humanity. How can someone abuse that?.. Once you take it, it scans your body first for all possible disorders, blockages and problem spots, then your mind and your heart, and then takes you to task cleaning out what does not belong in a human being. Things that don't belong abound in a modern human being. Could She possibly lose a fight to one of those upon encounter? I don't know. The drugs She might encounter are part of a great power in their own right, an evil one. But, like I said, I'm yet to see even one confirmed case where someone who is not on any drugs goes to a real (not touristy commercial) shaman and dies from trying to reclaim her humanity. So far, it hasn't happen. Oh, and bringing up the grieving mother doesn't constitute proof, you know... It does constitute a manipulation, of the kind I was talking about -- jerk the emotional strings till one can't think clearly, then brainwash at leisure. Which is exactly how these lies are sold. You've been shortchanged. Ask for your money back.

The number of confirmed cases is known: 0. The number of cases with innuendo and zero proof (as in, e.g., the referenced article, which does not actually mention the cause of death): as many as they like to concoct. I spent some time in the ayahuasca capital of Peru, Iquitos, before and after venturing into the rain forest. The number of people in Iquitos who take ayahuasca on any given day is estimated at about 10,000. That's 3,650,000 ingestions per year in that city alone. The number of deaths is still zero. The number of deaths in the same area from corporate activities beginning in the last century: 99% of the population. The number of corporations working from every angle imaginable to permanently rid the planet of the rain forest and, consequently, of human, animal, and plant life (the rain forest is the lungs of the planet, removing them is absolute and definite death for everybody, and they are working very hard at removing them) -- um, you tell me, folks. Have you been paying attention?.. MAOI drugs account for about 3 million deaths every year from mixing them with things like bike riding, aerobic exercise, alcohol, a host of foods, cross-reactions with other prescription and street drugs, or no other cause than the MAOI drug alone. If someone who has this frankendrug in the system happens to mix it with ayahuasca, guess which substance will be blamed. If he or she commits suicide or murder (there was no single case of a shooting spree in this country where these prescription drugs were not involved), guess how many billion dollars their manufacturers will lose from removing the violently dangerous substance from the market. You've guessed correctly. Zero.

I wouldn't discount taoist alchemy leading to magic -- all masters of top fajin ability include it in their training. Proper application of physics and anatomy all the way to the logical infinity they invariably disappear into has magic as its natural outcome. Only limited applications of same and limited understanding of the immensity of the properties of the universe and the body alike are mundane, drummed into every common-denominator head, scientific or otherwise. Taoists simply don't limit themselves to what we are told to limit ourselves to in our expectations of what the universe and the human body are capable of. For those who remember Castaneda (I've given some of his books a re-read recently, just to compare what, if anything, they have for me today vis a vis what they had at first encounter), high level fajin ability predicated on physics and anatomy is still on the "island of the tonal" in its entirety, or in our more proprietary terms, in taiji. But this is not the end of the story -- top level fajin and beyond, where there's no "levels," fajin arising in wuji, belongs to the infinite realm of the nagual. In fact, the very process of creation, wuji to taiji, happens via a fajin impulse arising from the third trigram -- not physical, not anatomical, just inherent in the nature of tao. One of its "virtues." Wuji fajins.

Of course not. However, if you choose to harass a member with YOUR rules, you're breaking the rules of this forum. I merely advised against the practice. To take my advice or not is entirely up to you, obviously, since you can make this mature adult decision for yourself, right?.. I also suggest this ends right here. No more derailings, OK?

You are not a moderator. Don't tell people what's appropriate to post and do not insinuate things that aren't there -- Shanlung's post is not "advertising" anything, he is sharing his history of practices in the appropriate context (to wit, why he chose to stop practicing taiji, in which I'm pretty sure he's a master that you aren't, incidentally -- have you seen his linked site and the posture he has? Have you seen his central axis? There's fajin right there, in the bones!) If you think someone posts something inappropriate, do report to the moderators (see "Report" button under each post?) who will review your opinion with all due attention. Thank you.

Please don't call yourself that. No one can be an idiot with a master like Tinkerbell. You're Learning to Fly on the Path.

Taoists associate amber with the Tiger energy and ascribe the same properties to both: protector against evil spirits, a fierce fighter of demons, spiritual, psychic, in communication with other dimensions, preserver of the memories of Earth, alchemist's ally. Amber is considered to have the tiger's soul. Many medicinal properties. Powdered amber stirred into wine is a tonic. An amber necklace worn continuously alleviates or even cures thyroid disorders. As for the bugs stuck in it -- I have a couple of specimens (from the Baltic shore) and it really freaks me out to know that those bugs are 70 million years old. Which they are. Completely intact. And not even all that different from our modern ones. One is an ant, the other one is a mosquito, very easy to identify.

It depends on how good he or she aims to get and what his or her purpose is. E.g., my own teacher was an indoor student of Li Deyin for ten years. (Li Deyin was the one who actually made taiji widely available to people in China, after decades of prohibitions and marginalization, and took it international -- see http://www.deyin-taiji.com/about-us/4-professor-li-deyin ). After that, he studied with other masters, notably with all the best Chen stylists, traveling to Chen village to learn from the old authentic lineage holders, studying with all the Four Tigers, and with Chen Fake/Hong Junsheng lineage folks in Beijing. And to this day, he uses every opportunity to learn something new from this or that master of great skill, organizing workshops every year so both he and his students can get exposure to all aspects of the power of taiji including the ones that he might not be teaching himself, traveling to China every year, and getting invited to many countries to do workshops spreading the art far and wide -- which is HIS goal, in accordance with the desire of his main teacher who transmitted the lineage in this manner, setting this particular task. He doesn't have a regular teacher of his own now because no one in the area is qualified to teach him, but based on what I know and have seen, if anyone was available whose skill is superior, he'd be learning from that person, no question.

You are very lucky! Yes, that's another thing -- a good teacher's very life working as an involuntary ad for his art... what Castaneda's Don Juan called "impeccability." A real teacher is impeccable. Not in the sense he or she is a saint, but in the sense of "doing your absolute best in absolutely everything you do." This generates spontaneous joy emanating from his/her presence, and some extra energy to go around. Besides the practice, the source of extra energy impeccable teachers have is that they don't use up any of it on stupid "moods," false facades, straining to impress, etc.. They use energy only toward doing the real thing... impeccably.

Behind everybody who started earlier than me under the same excellent teacher and practiced more. Ahead of everybody who started later and practiced less. Most importantly, WAY ahead of myself, the way my body and mind worked when I just started. Taiji is immense. A lifetime is not enough to grasp even a percentage of all it has. One of the people who told me this is 65, has been doing taiji for 40 years, can kick absolutely anyone's ass (I've seen it done, not a demo -- he regularly visits MA schools to check out who can do what, and no one can do anything against him) -- but still thinks that his teacher is light years ahead of him and hopes to learn from him for the rest of his life. I think you are arguing a moot point. Without a good teacher, there's no taiji, no matter what you've been telling yourself. If a good teacher is not available where you live, people ISO real taiji who know how important one is sometimes travel very long distances to get to one. If he or she is available but you're convinced you don't need them and taiji can be successfully obtained as a do-it-yourself project, then you have no taiji and no hope of ever getting it. The minimal, tantalizingly slow progress one makes while learning the real thing may not seem as such a great deal... until you compare it to never getting it at all.

ChiDragon, my taiji teacher is right here in California. He's been teaching here for over 20 years. I see him every week. Year after year. It's not psychological. Much less an "issue." (FYI, "a psychological issue," in English, is a euphemism that means "an emotional or mental problem.") My main taoist teacher is in China. Maybe that's the source of your misunderstanding of my ongoing vs. sporadic exposure to live instruction. With taiji, it's ongoing. With taoist cultivation, I'm on my own, after getting instructions and transmissions from the teacher. When I can, I'll see him again I hope. If I could, I'd see him all the time, like I see my taiji teacher. No such luck, alas.

Nora Gedgaudas, "Primal Body, Primal Mind." This is pretty radical. If you get cold feet, I'll recommend something "transitional." It took me a helluva lot of research and quite a while to get used to the idea of Abstaining From Grains before I was ready for the practice, and then a while more to throw in Abstaining From All Carbs And Starches -- this book was the last straw. If its whole field of ideas proves to be your first, I'd be curious to know how heavy you found that straw! -- so please report back guys/gals if you do check it out.

http://thetaobums.com/topic/19193-taomeow-on-coffee/

All right. That works. Thank you. Then back to the real discussion of taijiquan: I think one of the important factors is to learn from a teacher you admire. Mine has never said anything I would disagree with, or moved in a way I wouldn't want to emulate, but the main thing is his qi, the vibe. It energizes and vitalizes. I never feel as strong practicing by myself as in his presence. That's one thing, out of many, that I meant when I said that some teachers teach without words (and not necessarily because they can't read, write, or spell things out in another language.) Taiji is learned from the teacher's presence and touch -- as one (Western) source put it, "like a candle lit from a candle." Can't light a candle by telling it how to burn, you know... regardless of the language you use.

I can try to explain better. You keep insisting that being Chinese guarantees proficiency in taoist arts, sciences and practices, and being a Westerner guarantees misguided cluelessness. This is chauvinistic and supremacist. You can't belittle someone who has invested study, practice, respect, awareness, yes money too, above all willingness to learn from the source -- which in the case of taoism happens to be Chinese in origins but has transcended the borders because teachers and masters who used to only have Chinese students and disciples now have students and disciples who are Westerners (or non-Chinese Easterners for that matter -- or Pacific Islanders or Eastern Europeans, you name it). These students and disciples are only inferior to others if they are not applying themselves, are stupid, lazy, or too arrogant to humbly learn what a genuine teacher has to offer and too eager to consider themselves experts long before it's warranted. They are NOT inferior for reasons of the color of their skin, the shape of their eyes, or the primary language in which mom sang a lullaby to them. Some Chinese taoist teachers speak excellent English, some speak excellent Russian (I've learned from both sources), and some don't speak English at all but have excellent translators -- and some don't need words to teach. Time to realize that a taoist is not born, he or she is cultivated, and the material out of which he or she is cultivated is ethnically neutral. Anyone who thinks otherwise is merely a sufferer of an inferiority complex defensively covered up by a superiority stance. This is bullshit, my friend. I only feel inferior to someone of superior skill, and rightfully so. No way in hell I will feel inferior to someone who had all the opportunities I didn't and yet failed to use them to really learn. So, that was the gist of it. Did I manage to make myself any clearer?

Look up chauvinistic and supremacist in the dictionary, would you? My statements can't be impartial to our posted guidelines. I'm partial to following those both as a member and as a mod. If a conflict ever arises between my just-member functions and my mod functions, I'll promptly ask another mod to handle it, that's our drill. Don't worry. If you preach ethnic supremacy, sooner or later you'll get in trouble with each and every mod and the owner of the site too, doesn't have to be me. If you're in trouble with me personally, however, then someone else will be the judge of that. Enjoy!