Taomeow

Here's a few paragraphs translated on the go from the book on feng shui I mentioned to Sinfest -- curiously, when I took it from the shelf, it spontaneously opened to this passage: "What does the very notion of "feng shui" mean? Feng and Shui are the basic symbolic categories of the subtle life energy, qi. In translation feng means "wind" and shui is usually erroneously translated as "water." However, like with any Chinese characters, the real translation of the hieroglyphs "feng" and "shui" presents not the definitions but the images revealed to humans by the surrounding nature and reflecting complex processes of the universe. Thus, Chinese sages understood the term "feng" as referring to any type of manifested movement, and "shui" was their name for different states (objects and phenomena) that are subject to movement. That's why "feng shui," like "the moisture of the clouds moved by the wind," is understood as manifestations of the process of living which are subject to change in any (auspicious or inauspicious) direction. Yet the wind has no shape and the clouds have no size. To measure the size of the clouds and perceive the shape of the wind, one must master the genuine knowledge of the science of feng shui. Can the wind (feng) acquire shape, and the clouds (shui) -- dimensions? The answer to these questions is found in ancient Chinese treatises, which state that the unity is embodied in the rhythm, the rhythm creates structure, structure generates form, form determines the dimensions (size), the size determines the volume, volume gives birth to space, space is measured with time. The "unity" is qi. Pulsating qi creates the form, imparting the rhythm into all of the universe by manifesting itself in the movement of yang-qi and yin-qi. The manifestation of the form and the possibility of its reverse transformation is the way of qi, or Tao. Comprehension of this way -- de -- is possible if man studies and abides by the laws of feng shui. The basis of the Chinese science of feng shui is the skill of discerning the flow of qi and moving within its course." And this isn't even the first brush stroke, it's not even dipping the brush, it's not even grinding the ink yet... it's just a whiff of the feng over the would-be shui in the ink pot, a hand over a brush, not even... a glance at the brush that can generate feng that can dive into shui that promises a picture -- if it doesn't change its direction, its mind, its spirit...

Thanks for a helping hand/mind, Joeblast!

Feng shui is not what your dictionary told you it is. You can't get it by translating the words. It means exactly what I said it means, not "wind and water" as it is translated by those who have the dictionary but not the classical form-compass and/or xuan kong feng shui training. Word.

Hmmmmmm indeed, we're talking years of accumulation of sources from here and there. The latest one I got is pretty good and poses no translation problems whatsoever (the author is Chinese but, being spectacularly talented as a taoist sage can be expected to be whether "leaving the world" or "coming into the world," has come into the world, got a few Ph.D. degrees in Russia, and writes some of his books in Russian, including this one): У Вэйсинь, "Новый Фэн Шуй: Биоэнергетика и здоровье" It is available in Russian bookstores in New York (where I got it by physically walking in). Good luck!

The main texts that could help you get it have been translated. (If you studied them in any language under a knowledgeable master, I've a hunch you'd have mentioned the Nine Palaces instead of the "nine white dots.") "Has nothing to do with the trigrams" has been untrue ever since the two fundamental classical feng shui schools, the Ming and the Guanzhou, integrated the Nine Palaces derived from Hetu and Luoshu with the bagua, the Ten Stems and Twelve Branches, the constellations, the landforms, and the rest of them goodies that together comprise the bulk of the original Chinese philosophy and practice (THAT's what feng shui really is, not "wind-water" but "spirit-manifestation," a much deeper cognitive paradigm). This, my friend, was documented in much detail circa 874-889 a.d. but happened, in all likelihood, much earlier. Give it a rest already with "you can't get the info unless you read Chinese." For starters, some of us have Chinese teachers who speak English and are able and occasionally willing to offer oral transmissions both of material that can be found in books (if you know where to look) AND of material you won't find in books, in any language, if you live to be a thousand. Then again, some of us read other languages than English, and what has and what hasn't been translated into these does not always overlap. E.g., you have no idea how many books have been translated from Chinese into Russian that are no longer available in Chinese because of the Cultural Revolution and other book-unfriendly historic events. As just one example, the humongous ancient treatise that forms the basis of Tibetan medicine -- which has a lot of feng shui in it because it's all one snake -- I've read it in Russian into which it's been translated in the 19th century by the teacher of the dalai lama, but you can't read it in Chinese because every single copy has been destroyed since then. So, do keep this in mind, OK?..

Where the light won't go, one wave of his changshan sleeve sets free the phoenix

Sorry... Let me rephrase a bit. It can cause heartache in a feeling individual. I haven't cried over a book since I was, like, 8 or 9, and these days (when I read fiction only once in a blue moon and mostly stick to nonfiction) it takes a lot -- a helluva lot of authenticity -- to make me empathize with protagonists to the point of a genuine emotional reaction. I know how fiction is "made," fabricated, I see through the veils of the plot into the gears and gimmicks that make it work or falter, so it takes something more than skill, talent, and verbal prowess to get past my somewhat detached, "clinical" knowledge of what the author is "trying" to do and touch my heart. (Of course if a work of fiction has no genuine talent behind it, I just drop it a few pages into the disappointment -- a few paragraphs even, or a few words -- "hooks" don't hook me, worst come to worst I'll just read a bunch of pages ahead to find out what the big hoopla was all about and then drop it). So, if I read something and people come alive and their joys and sorrows pull me in, the "pulleys" have to be somehow organic, I detest artificial drama both in literature and in real life. So, Shipwrecks has those organic tragic-makers that life itself applies from time to time -- when her mood is dark. I'm not sure if it's "depressing" when it's "fascinatingly tragic" -- but I had to issue a warning so as not to darken someone's already dark outlook. But of course the level to which any book can have an impact on any particular reader's emotions varies greatly.

Shipwrecks by Akira Yoshimura Stark simplicity of the writing, mind-bending complexity of the moral, ethical, transcendental implications. O-fune-sama! Now this has become my word too for all kinds of phenomena I encounter or contemplate that involve contacts with higher, incomprehensible powers. O-fune-sama... which can roughly be translated as "her majesty the shipwreck" or "the venerated lord shipwreck," something like that. Don't read this (short) novel if you're depressed.

I second this. Playfulness is the attitude dogs understand especially well, because most of them spend most of their lives looking for clues of playfulness in their owners, for they're dying to be invited to play and don't want to miss the slightest opportunity. I live in Dog City USA (the only one in California that votes republican, by the way), and occasionally my walking qigong path crosses the Dog Beach where dogs of all sizes and levels of compliance are let off the leash in large numbers, so I've learned to warn the ones that look over-excited or potentially unfriendly, "hey, hey, slow down, I have three cats!!! Don't mess with me!" The dogs usually laugh when I say that. Except that one time when a dog looked positively shocked upon hearing about the three cats, and his owner told me, "please don't talk of cats in his presence. He's had some unfortunate encounters..."

Thank you for your perspective. One thing I have seen many times and understood never is some of the non-practitioners begrudging a practitioner her practice and denying or negating or marginalizing her lifestyle based on same. I've seen roughly the same arguments in justification of this stance -- "you do it to compete" and "to gain the upper hand" and "because you think you are better than me" and what not -- on various bewildering occasions. This is usually followed by this or that "should" -- "you should/shouldn't do/not do/think/feel this and not that," and invariably the non-practitioner seeks to establish his (usually his -- I've seen much fewer instances of this attitude from women, for whatever reason) own superior, upper hand, know-better-than-you and am-holier-than-thou position. If you catch yourself doing this, I invite you to take a closer look at your motives. If you don't -- good for you. It is a useless pursuit, to teach a practitioner who respects some of her teachers and reveres others, and hopes to emulate whoever she has already chosen as her taoist role models, any "better attitudes" than the ones she has already found enough incentives to internalize to propel her practice. She may or may not argue with you out loud, but she is guaranteed to transfer you (the generic you, not you personally) from her mental list of "unique, growing, unfolding individuals -- they will still surprise, I've seen nothing yet" to, well, her other mental list. Hope you're doing well too.

Yes. but... when Gilgamesh asked Enkidu, "Tell me, my friend, tell me, my friend, the law of the world that you know," the latter responded, "I can't tell thee, my friend, I can't tell thee, but if I told thee the law of the world that I know, (you would) sit down and weep." But then... I know the dark side and the bright side of the serpent. The back is dark and the underbelly is light, but in some serpents it's reversed, or they're black all over, or golden, or copper (I nearly stepped on a copper-and-gold colored snake as a kid, bright light, bright terror) -- oops, don't let me get carried away... ...what I mean is, the dark side of the snake story is, e.g., that the Merovingian dynasty of the kings of Franks and assorted/related European religious, political, and financial nobility derive (proudly) their descent from the snake queen (Melusine, in some versions of the tradition, something else in others) who emerged from the sea -- official genealogical records of old Gaul nobility cite her as the progenitor of the line in all seriousness, followed by many, many descendants who rule the world to this day -- so, too, in most "legends" and "myths" scattered all over the planet, the snake is our creator and/or overlord, in this shape or that, the Plumed Serpent, the Dragon, the Nagas, the Great Cobra, Marduk and Enki and Enlil and all those other scaly creatures everywhere and every-when, the story does not vary in its essence, only in the details -- but the bright side of the snake, of two intertwined snakes especially, is the DNA, which is what life is based on throughout the universe, not just on planet Earth. Fuxi and Nuwa are not provincial, not some enslaving superior species posing as a deity -- they might well be real deities. Who knows... but in any event, Nuwa, the creatress of humans, is yet another one of those snakes that make us into nothing more (or maybe nothing less) than a biological batch of snake-made goods serving this or that snaky purpose -- unless they themselves are man-made long tails tales, which I doubt.

I guess boring is in the eye of the beholder. I find many things that most of my peers might deem exciting boring, and vice versa. But in terms of "something happening," one of the best things that has happened so far as the outcome of cultivation is the learned skill (turned innate ability) to be the one who decides whether something is going to be boring or exciting. Good qigong contains the know-how for this. You learn to flip some inner switches on, some off, and be excited or bored as the outcome of executing absolute control over your state of mind quite independent of any and all incidental offerings from any activity you're engaged in or the sheer chance of your outer circumstances. You are bored if the same boring ocean wave crashes again and again into the same boring rock of your immobile, carved-in-stone modes of perception and states of consciousness available to you... ...but you are anything but bored if you are the ocean choosing what to crash into, with what force, what mood, color, shape, smell, levels of ionization and salination, and whether to flip a whale upside down while at it or sink a Titanic with one of your icebergs or raise a sunken island by activating one of your underwater volcanoes. Perceptions trained with good qigong are like that... an ever-expanding infinity of options and choices that can't possibly bore because boredom is finite and your inner freedom, infinite. If boredom ascends you have the power to turn it into a speck of dust on the northern slope of the mountain of infinity and go about the rest of your business never bothered by it ever again. This is a supernatural ability for an average modern person (I know it from the pre-cultivation time when I didn't have even a speck of it) that is both more difficult to attain and considerably more rewarding on a daily basis than shooting lasers from one's ass hands.

My kind of book "attachment." (A concept for which my non-ambitious but traditional use is limited to analyzing the virtues and dangers of the Li trigram, its double-strength hexagram, The Clinging, and a few other hexagrams ignited by its tenacious fire-light.) I'm seldom found without this or that version of the I Ching close by -- not necessarily among whatever belongings I carry but within reach the same day, at least. If I travel far, before I do I ask her, do you want to go on a trip? If she says yes, I take her, if she says no, she simply waits for me at my destination.

The "it" I have is respect, interest, eagerness to approach without preconceptions and to learn, and love for the awesomeness of the world of taoist arts, sciences and practices -- no more, no less. I've claimed no other advantages. "Westerners" can learn tao from a doorknob for all I know. But whenever someone says that "taoism in its entirety is what the doorknob has told me, end of story," I occasionally feel compelled to put in a good word for taoism. Just to be fair to a culture that has given the world sliding doors (doorknobs are bad feng shui, and sliding doors are a taoist invention based on this bit of non-laoist, taoist proper, information).

I thought I was answering your questions, what did you think I was doing? Recruiting?

The I Ching, which predates Laozi by at least 2000 years, was the first one included in the taoist canon, but it wasn't the "source" either, since original taoism is much older. Here's a good article by Derek Lin written circa the time we used to discuss this aplenty, years ago (he published a couple of taoist books since): http://www.taoism.ne...origin/home.htm

Taoism is not derived from TTC. TTC is included in the taoist canon, but not as the first canonized text, and to many most influential schools, not as the most important one. However, even the whole of the taoist canon, the written sources, which is the largest body of written knowledge on any one subject in existence in all of history, constitutes a fraction of what taoism proper is. What is it? Only the most comprehensive approach to reality and the art and science of being part of it in a sensible way in existence. To marginalize it as something derived from one little book Westerners (and some Western-conditioned Chinese) happen to like is cultural imperialism.

Actually, it's not taoism, it's laoism. As for taoism not being a lifestyle, what do you make of the way I carry a luopan with me (that's not a book, in case anyone has been wondering), and when I travel I take my calligraphy brushes and an ink stone and a copy of the I Ching and a set of yarrow stalks I made and matured and consecrated myself, and I check the taoist almanach and the lunar calendar before scheduling appointments, and do bazi readings, and make talismans, and make offerings to the ancestors and the Three Pure Ones and Xi Wangmu and Sun Bu-er, and use a peach tree wood sword for spiritual self-defense and bells, fans, gourd bottles, talismanic water to work with environmental qi, and design all my practices around my ming gua and my wuxing layout, and haven't seen a Western doctor since sometime in the last century but own and use scores of TCM books and design my own herbal formulas and dit da jows based on what I've learned, and use guasha and cupping and occasionally gold and emerald elixirs, and practice taijiquan and qigong and taoist alchemy, and wear traditional taoist clothes for this though never in public, and even on the beach trace taoist symbols into the sand more often than not, and a bit of female alchemy and the bedchamber arts, and a bit of form-compass/xuan kong feng shui, and all of this I do because not doing it makes no sense to me anymore, and you say taoism is not a lifestyle?

Thank you for the diamonds, Rainbow! and for your kind words, Ryan.

Creation did not "happen" in the taoist paradigm at all. Being and nonbeing are two sides of the same tao coin. "Being comes from nonbeing" and "nonbeing reverts to being" naturally. There's no cause-effect relationship, no "before" and "after," no "reason why." (There only a "how" -- and to the question "how" does creation happen in taoism the answer is, "via the first impulse of Thunder originating from the third trigram of the xiantian, Spring, setting the still and the unmanifest into motion and manifestation.") There's inherent properties of tao, of which being and nonbeing are the primary ones. Consequently, anyone steeped in any creationist paradigm (be it father in heaven or the big bang or the void that has somehow made this or that decision at this or that point for this or that reason, or what have you) would take the first step toward grasping the non-creationist taoist paradigm by applying the "why" question elsewhere: Q: Why doesn't linear logic wrap around taoist cosmology? A: Because it doesn't bend.

Sure. This metaphor has to do with my overall view of the nature of the human being, from physical to emotional to the moral character of the upright-walking, vertical beast that we are. It is also related to the concepts of softness-hardness; heng (reliability, lasting nature, sturdiness in relation to the influences of time and change); and pu, "preciousness." All kinds of training humans undertake or are forced to undertake in order to become stronger, sturdier physically and emotionally (as well as more "upright" morally) are practiced in the form of assorted sports, endurance routines, military drills, boot camps, etc.. etc.. These typically create bodies that are hard on the outside, with an overall impression of toughness -- tough guys and gals, iron men and women, the type both stiff and stiff-upper-lip, with flexibility and finer feeling and responsiveness trained out and an "unbreakable surface" installed. Taiji people call this type "hard on the outside, soft on the inside," or "hard muscles, soft bones." This type handles stress of a medium level very well, but crumbles under extreme pressure, physically, emotionally, morally -- internally. Physically, people trained in this manner are attacked from the inside -- by their own heart, liver, kidneys, spleen, lungs and so on -- as well as their own disturbed, unsteady, unreliable mind. That's because the training of the outer toughness has been undertaken at the expense of the inner organs, driving their strength and vitality out to the surface, depleting their qi. Emotionally, a lack of flexible responsiveness on the surface, the numbing-out, control via suppression, creates a neurotic breech between the mind and the body, between thinking and feeling, between experience and expression. This accumulates a lot of inner tension, assorted pent-up feelings that are like a ticking time bomb waiting to explode -- or else implode -- doing damage to the innocent bystanders or to the individual himself, or both. Morally, this type has no real set of internal values to hold their character together and to hold it up to any natural, inherently human standard. Their moral values are superimposed, an outcome of conditioning rather than of having found something inside that tells you the right from the wrong. Superimposed morality is not reliable -- again there's no congruence between feeling, thinking, body sensations, and beliefs, it's all haywire. These people will adopt moral values as offered from the outside, not as found inside, and act accordingly, which is why misery spreads like wildfire around them, their families, their countries, nations, empires, historic epochs. Heavy, huh? -- but to me it's only logical, hard on the outside, soft on the inside is against the genuine human nature, and if you go against nature, you go wrong every which way. Now then. There's far fewer methods to accomplish the opposite -- to strengthen the true xing and ming, life and spirit, physicality, emotionality and morality in concert. The goal of these is to create a human being of the type taiji folks call "steel needle wrapped in cotton," "soft on the outside, hard on the inside," "soft muscles, hard bones." The territory comes with an approach opposite of the one I've described above. You don't harden your surface, don't numb out your feeling responsiveness, you don't adopt moral values and beliefs imposed from the outside. You train yourself to be flexible, pliable, yielding, you don't meet force with force, you don't drag your strength out from your inner core, you gather and collect and store it inside, it is not for show, it is for to make you heng, reliably strong in every sense, not on the surface but at the very foundation of your being. People trained in this manner don't concern themselves with how they handle minor to moderate stress, trusting their natural sensitivity to take care of their reaction, knowing this reaction will not be extreme and overblown nor numbed-out and artificially subdued. There's no pent-up, locked-away, suppressed feelings waiting to explode or implode. There's no depletion of one's ability to withstand extreme stress. So if/when (for most people it's a matter of "when" rather than "if," alas) it comes, they are equipped to handle it without crumbling. It can be any kind -- physical, mental, emotional, it can be a challenge to xing and ming, to everything you hold dear... and you persevere, endure, your core stays intact. This is what I call "the diamond axis." This sturdy, hard, brilliant, entirely reliable inner strength that you possess -- nothing can break it, it is infinite, its reliability is absolute, not relative. Time and change can't make a dent. So, zhan zhuang is one of those practices (of which there's few, compared to thousands and thousands that do the opposite) whose true purpose is this kind of training. This is what it's supposed to accomplish. It strengthens your muscles without making them stiff and hard and without taking vital forces away from your inner organs for accomplishing the task. It strengthens your emotionality and teaches you your own limits and ways to push them further without either suppressing, numbing out, or losing control over your feelings. It gives you a training in moral uprightness that is your very own -- you lean toward no one, no leader but your own human core, and to lean toward that (which can only be accomplished if your body, mind, and spirit all lean toward your very own center harmoniously, in unison) is to find your true values, your natural morality. It can't be explained or taught, it has to be found. Zhan zhuang helps find it. When you have found it, every which way -- physically, emotionally, morally, spiritually -- it is of diamond quality, precious, eternal, and a great comfort to know you have. You are rich beyond measure, you have a great treasure hidden inside, not for show, but for your own peace of mind no one and nothing can dent. That's the diamond axis. Whew!

Thanks for citing the explanation. The virtue of Wood is expressed very succinctly and correctly. (Wood is indeed the phase of expansion of harmonious qi, also known in the larger context of a live planet and, still larger, of the cosmos teeming with biological phenomena, as Life, live organisms -- animals are part of this, of course, as are humans and non-synthetic, fully biological aliens. The harmonizing properties of the Wood phase of qi counteract entropy. Put in different terms, the virtue of Wood is to inactivate the second law of thermodynamics... hooray for that, because mindless and meaningless increase of entropy would make for one boring universe! Hooray for Life that makes it not so! ) So, he equates "expansion" with "penetration," the property of Wind found in the I Ching (e.g., in the "penetration under the bed" etc. lines). I still say "penetration" is a property of Metal (like a blade) but then the miaodao, the taoist sword, IS shaped like a blade of grass... Interesting, I'll have to think some more about it. It's as though Wood can show some traits of her grandmother phase, Metal... and the "gene" they share might be Wind. To your question: well, yes, I've been familiar with the components of Shao's approach from other sources (primarily taoist numerology derived from Hetu and Luoshu over xiantian and houtian bagua arrangements over wuxing), but I know this stuff mostly via a different venue (classical form-compass/xuankong feng shui and bazi), and have always used the I Ching "as is." I might get the book after all though, since as you say it references Shao's work, which is of interest to me. Thanks.

I'm pretty sure the monastery was not taoist. Taoists wouldn't tie a cat; the cat wouldn't be making noise during a taoist meditation (mine meditate with me); if the cat was to regularly make noise during meditation, taoists would infer they were doing something wrong -- to the cat (e.g., having failed to feed her before meditating), to the meditation (cats are qi-sensitive), or to the Yin energies symbolized by the White Tigress. They would probably try to figure out what the problem was instead of resorting to animal abuse. Furthermore, empty ritual with no explanations would not be tolerated by taoist practitioners (unless adopted from other modalities). "It's traditional" is a great excuse for those who don't know "why" it is traditional, but taoists are bent on knowing why. So "it's traditional" is invariably followed by "because" and the historic precedents (exact sources of the tradition, with names and places and the rationale for adopting it) are preserved rather than forgotten.

It is not "a fancy name created in the west." It is what I said it is -- "what I call it." Most fancy names for this stuff were created in the East, incidentally. When I use them, I use them the way I've been taught by my teachers. When I create a name, I say so. I call the effects of zhan zhuang "the diamond axis" because of the way I perceive them.

It's my density destiny... I'm a Gen8West (to a bagua buff ), my purpose in life is to set, upset, and shift the limit... so I can't start any major sh..t from scratch and in earnest (that's for the third trigram to undertake), but it's demanded of me that I hint at its whereabouts here and there.