Taomeow

LOL, I thought you were deadpan serious until you brought up your auntie and your uncle, and was applauding your courage... instead of your sense of humor which I applaud at this point. However, the campaign to make everything alien-extraterrestrial-UFO "laughable" was organized in the 50s as a government policy and going strong ever since -- no syndicated journalist was ever allowed to report any of this without a smirk, a wink, a hearty laugh... the information simply doesn't get released without this mandatory mockery which is part of the job description. Very efficient, by the way. Even you and me and people who know better seem to have internalized the pattern. It was being presented as "laughable" for decades, we've absorbed the attitude with mother's milk or soy formula from the bottle, as the case may be... I will start catching myself laughing this away on cue just as the archons insist I must, and making a conscious effort at spiritual disobedience at the very least, if not civil.

Oh boy... thank you for sharing. I recognize some of the drill... on the third day the brew went down with dreadful premonitions and instant knowledge of an "overdose..." ...and the mechanical world (or biomechanical? very much like what Inca and Maya art often depicts, stuff you can't really tell whether it's organic or technological, alive or automatic?..), I've seen it, late in the journey that night, but I didn't get abducted, I was sort of offered to explore it from the inside and was terrified out of my mind, so I begged Her to abort the interaction. Which She did... only to take me somewhere no less drastic. Oh, and the "stuck on the exhale" is familiar too. A woman who was not a shaman but a Peruvian ayahuasquera of several years' experience helped me out at that point (there were many instances of the shaman intervening, or his apprentice, or their disciples, or other entities, many many to thank for helping me... down to AC/DC who showed up briefly when I lost the ability people take for granted in everyday life, the knack for telling the left from the right and orienting oneself in space based on this simple knowledge -- She recruited AC/DC momentarily to sing in my ear, "my balls are always bouncing to the left and to the right" -- which restored the left-right orientation of space first as an idea, and then as normal spacial awareness. On top of lightening the moment with a giggle, which She did many times too.) Anyway... I've become familiar with the written sources you cite only after the fact, and one thing I learned, to my surprise, was that She takes "white tourists" and rain forest dwellers different places altogether... and She took me both places. Which was more than either category would normally have to endure, or chance to learn. God bless and god damn. We should talk...

Hi Rene, good to see you here! Mouse and Te?.. I don't remember... but let me guess... my thinking would go something like, the Te of a mouse is perfect when the mouse is all mouse to the fullest and not trying to act like a tiger, a salmon, or a guru to practicing taoists?..

Nice! You're right, dragons have everything to do with tea. Being connoisseurs themselves, Oriental ones climate-control for conditions that benefit Camellia Sinensis. There's three major kinds of dragons, the European, American, and Oriental ones, and a number of subspecies in each category... European ones are the only ones that can release fire from the mouth (they are not fire-breathing, contrary to legends, the mechanism is different). That's because they are the only kind of dragon that has a three-chamber stomach. They digest fast foods in the first chamber (most dragons are marginally omnivorous but predominantly vegetarian), and in the second one they process tough plant material -- twigs, bark, roots -- and to be able to digest it, they ferment it with the help of friendly/symbiotic bacterial cultures. In the process of fermentation, methane and other gases are formed. These are collected in the third chamber. This flammable gas can be released at will (a voluntary belch) and the dragon can ignite it by rapidly clicking its teeth together, generating a spark. American and Oriental dragons only have two-chamber stomachs, so they don't make fire, but they do form methane and other gases in their second chamber and, not being equipped to store them, release them continuously or periodically, which is why they are known as "misty" or "creatures of mists and fog" or "hiding in clouds" -- the gas actually "seeds" clouds, much like chemtrails of today. The classic Chinese paintings showing a dragon obscured by clouds (often with no more than a claw or a scale sticking out here and there) are actually accurate depictions of how one would spot a dragon with a trained eye. They are hard to spot because, on top of shrouding themselves with mists and vapors and clouds, they are nocturnal. American dragons (the large ones only survive in South America) much prefer coffee. The best varieties, the "shades," i.e. coffee grown in natural environments rather than man-made plantations, are also a product of misty, humid, moist dragon-controlled climates. European dragons are largely extinct, except for the oldest and most powerful ones.

This would be a different poll.

Good. The poll was not designed to reveal true believers OR their negative mirror image and psychological twins, true unbelievers. (A true believer AND a true unbeliever alike believe anything that fits in their respective pre-conceived belief systems, and disregard any and all information that doesn't. There's no difference between them except for the minor point of what specifically it happens to be that their beliefs automatically revolve around and what it is that they automatically leave out of this orbit.) This-here poll was designed to find out what people believe about their own experiences (or lack thereof), not someone else's (as in the case of true believers and true unbelievers.) In addition, the question about the missing time does not presuppose any beliefs at all except for the working hypothesis that the responding party knows how to read the clock and/or the calendar.

Oh, and I made the poll anonymous, so others (including me) won't know how you voted unless you wish to add a post with an explanation I hear you, brother. That's one of the reasons I'm interested. I have many more questions but the poll form only allows for 3. Maybe I will do a follow-up poll if this one points in this or that direction...

Done, I made them return the "none of the above" button. Vote away!

Oops, let me fix that

If it's any consolation, the world at large isn't quite ready for different-color skin, a different religion or none whatsoever, a different body shape, a different-length nose, a different accent, a different car to drive or driving no car... the list goes on and on. The world is not ready for "not-like-me." Not ready for "smarter-than-me," "thinner-than-me," "fatter-than-me," "better-off-than-me," "poorer-than-me," "weirder-than-me," "more-conventional-than-me..." You are in a good company with about seven billion people like you!

Yeah, but the Tarahumara also stay quite permanently drunk as a default lifelong state, so using them as an example of how to be healthy one might have to be consistent?.. I believe people (there's very few of them left on this planet) who are born into true tribal environments are largely a different species. When I was living at the shaman's place in the rain forest, so far removed from the civilized parts of the country that even Peruvians in Lima whom I later told about my adventures perceived them as stories brought back from another planet, at one point I went for a walk along a trail that leads (eventually, hours of walking later) to the road that eventually takes one to Iquitos, the biggest city in the world not accessible by car (you can fly in or you can navigate the Amazon to get there, but there's no roads to take otherwise). A man half walking, half running in the opposite direction, toward the shaman's place, passed me on my way. He was perhaps a member of the household carrying some supplies from a trip to wherever he went for them. The supplies looked like a sack of potatoes or something, the size of a Volkswagen, and the man carrying it was perhaps in his 50s but no bigger in his physique than a skinny Western 12-year-old. He carried it on his shoulders but the bulk of its weight was supported by his head -- the bag was strapped to his forehead with a band of some sturdy cloth. It looked like something that should have broken his neck and squished him under its weight like a bug. However, the man wasn't showing any signs of fatigue. He greeted me, smiling shyly and saying something in a local dialect. He had a huge machete in his hand, which made me think that part of his route must have been off trail so on top of carrying the load he had to make his way with the machete in the otherwise impenetrable jungle. We proceeded on our respective ways in the opposite directions, but I turned to watch him go... It still seems unreal though I can still see him in my mind's eye. He was practically flying with the load. I don't know anyone in Europe or the US, no matter how athletic, who could do what I saw that man doing.

Hi Balance, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Here's a few of mine on the run, on your heels, in your dust, so to speak... I didn't expect anyone who enjoys running to drop it at the drop of a hat... um, a forum post. Merely answering a question as to the origins of my own position on the subject. My daughter, who responds with a few miles of running to any and all life's challenges, joys and sorrows, won't listen to me either. So far the only adverse effect I've noticed is that by now she is less flexible than me even though she could spontaneously do any level yoga when she was five, while I discovered the joys of flexibility when I was past thirty. To me it looks like a runner's body is aging at a rate somewhat faster than a taiji body, though of course a child of mine will still always be twenty years younger than me, which will always make any wisdom, or its opposite, which the next twenty years might bring, somewhat difficult to accept until it is experienced. Two points for consideration for the next twenty years though. Much as "trust your body" is my own mantra, I predicate it with "but know your body and understand its meanings precisely first." Knowing your body takes some time, because it is a body of changes, so whatever you trusted yesterday may not be true today anymore... and whatever you misunderstood today (the generic "you" of course, not you personally) might, taken to its logical further developments, turn into a shocking tomorrow's surprise. E.g., feeling great after strenuous exercise means only that -- you feel great... and few people are tempted to ask "why" while feeling great. Ah but it's a million dollar question. Not to say it's the case in every single case, but just for future consideration: a very common reason for feeling great after strenuous exercise (so great that other signals from the same body, aches and pains you did mention, are ignored as insignificant) is that the activity is actually causing damage and the body responds to damage by releasing endorphins, internal opiates, and even LSD-like substances (sic!) -- in short, painkillers and mind-soothers. Which causes quite a few strenuously exercising folks to get addicted to their own internal chemicals. Runner's high is not called a "high" for nothing. And another point... I got a PM from one of the bums who is facing multiple joints replacement surgeries and is in such pain that even reading the message brought tears to my eyes. Now fifty, he laments bitterly having pushed his body to the limits when he was younger. Maybe the two of you should talk?.. 'cause unlike me, he was at some point exactly where you are now. Not to scare you away from something you enjoy... but, again, so you know where some of the "anti-strenuous" ideas are coming from. In any event, some people may be sturdy enough to withstand with impunity what others can't -- I hope you are in this former category. Oh, and read the book on Tarahumara running techniques, if nothing else, you will probably be convinced to choose your running shoes wisely.

More common than that. An official Vatican representative, the Pope's Chief Astronomer, made a public statement recently announcing that Vatican's policy will be to treat aliens as our brethren, and that he personally will be more than happy to baptize them. I'm not kidding. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fJ8l_W8_xg

Really sorry about that, and agree that it's very traumatic (not as much as traumatic birth though... has to do with the earliest events having the greatest impact. The earlier, the greater. Birth is the biggest life-and-death event in anyone's life, and all that happens in the process creates the kind of systemic memories that are known to biologists as imprinting, or to taoists as "carvings on the uncarved block," which are, in the unnatural birth scenario, deep and painful, and quite permanent.) Even though I'm not a boy, I do have some idea, I worked with three guys who were sorting out this particular trauma at the time. The reason one "wants" conscious memories is that unconscious ones are there anyway (if you had to live through it, the systemic memory is there, "everything" in you remembers -- except for the neocortex. Which will proceed to try to explain the inexplicable feelings hitting it from below by concocting an ideation system... a series of fairy tales designed to make sense of real events of your early life which a traumatically disconnected mind is unable to find real-life context for, because it doesn't remember this context.) The problem is that while remaining unconscious, traumatic memories push your buttons for you without your consciousness having a clue as to what's going on and why. People turn into puppets pulled by the strings of their own unconscious early developmental memories which never stop to pull and push for resolution and reconnection to consciousness, i.e. for "wholeness." Once connected to consciousness and lived through, traumatic memories lose much of their traumatic impact on the rest of your body, your psyche, and ultimately your destiny. That's the reason people like me who have some experience with the dynamics of the process of reconnecting fragmented memories into a conscious whole maintain that conscious memory is "everything" -- the alpha and omega of emotional, mental, and physical health.

Thanks, Vortex and Kathy Li, for explaining the name. Still, there's this old school of thought that maintains that destiny is encoded in the name... I have a recording of a huge interview (over 6 hours) I did in China with a Longmen/TCM master, which I keep putting off transcribing. Shame on me. And Sean is an inspiration, as always. I'll quit dispersing my shen all over TTB and get to work... right meow.

Yup. Brisk walking gives you 80% of the workout of running, without taxing the body. And since I started Wang Liping's walking qigong, it's a different world altogether. I haven't been practicing it till recently even though I learned it way back when... I think I mentioned I had a year of slacking... but now I'm getting back on track, and now I'm in love with the practice. I do it anywhere between 30 minutes and one hour almost every day now. At the end, I feel supercharged and energized and clear, no tiredness whatsoever even if I started out tired.

Because it creates a vicious cycle between the heart and the kidneys. All organs are functionally interdependent, and in a perfectly healthy body this means particular ratios of energy distribution between them and particular rates of pulsation that have to match up. A healthy heart pulsates at an average of 72 beats per minute, a healthy kidney, at an average of 36 beats per minute, we have two kidneys, therefore together they pulsate at 72 beats per minute, matching the heart exactly. (Fire-Water in perfect balance.) Now if you go running, you speed up your heart. As you do, you increase the blood flow to the periphery at the cost of decreasing blood supply to the internal organs. Metabolites of this increased peripheral activity have to be taken care of by the kidneys which filter urine out of the blood. Increasing your metabolic rate with a strenuous activity means more work for the kidneys, and they have to perform this surplus of tasks on a lower-than-normal blood supply, and at a pulsation rate that is now mismatched with that of the heart, since you can't speed up the pulse of the kidneys to the same rate you can speed up your heart by running. The heart will try to pump still faster to overcome the blockages created in the kidneys by its own already-faster-than-normal rate. This wears down both the heart and the kidneys, wastes your internal energy, and throws off the wuxing balance of all other organs of the body. As an occasional spree (the way children run when they need to discharge extra energy) running is perfectly fine, but as a regular willpower-induced activity (the way joggers run when they decide, in the head, that it's a good way to keep in shape) it is depleting to the whole system. (Willpower originates in the kidneys, so forcing yourself to do things you have to do against your body's protests further depletes them.) Hope this makes sense. If not, Dr. Stephen Chang explains it better in his book, "The Complete System of Self-Healing," where I first came across the idea (later much corroborated by other taoist sources), many moons ago.

'tis true.

Well, Kan came to our neck-of-woods not long ago to teach Kunlun. That's Kunlun, not something else. He may have the best of the best of not-of-this-earth teachers, but what he chooses to teach when he comes to California is Kunlun. So I don't think the jab at the "certain teacher" is justified. After all, when teaching the public and charging money for the teachings, Kan teaches specifically what he learned from this teacher. So the very least he owes him is a livelihood. No small peas, this.

I honestly don't get what you mean. Did I inadvertently offend you somehow?

What's in a name? It's not always obvious what the name an author gives to his creation means to the author. So I was merely guessing that the name and the actual qi dynamics of the practice might be somewhat related.

Well, I don't know this system as a system, although pretty much all of its elements mentioned in the interview are familiar to me from other practices, so I don't know if it's really a "wood" practice as a whole, aside from the name, which I saw as a bit of a wuxing pun. (To compare: "tree qigong" is a wood practice, and it involves actual trees and certain dynamics of movement that are an alternation between fire and water, with wood in between, i.e. at its "natural" place between fire and water.) Where would a "wood" practice stand in contemporary circumstances?.. I guess in the right place "in general" -- current society's Five Phases are unbalanced along the fire-metal predominance over water-wood. But when it comes to an individual, I would still look at which phases are the most/least beneficial for this particular individual.

Here we go again. "You should"?.. Even my teachers don't tell me what I "should." Instead, they show me something I might want to emulate. You don't. For the sake of others who might be following the exchange, let me clarify. It's not that I don't believe in reincarnation and memories all the way to the womb. It's just that I don't believe "everyone" who says that they have them. I accept these things on a case by case basis. If it so happens that you come across someone who, based on your presentation, finds she doesn't trust you, please be advised that there's no way you can condescend to this person, shame her, or otherwise coerce her into trusting you. You might want to just accept it, and accepting it is not about scoring points in a hurry with all those assorted "you don't understand" and "you don't realize" and "you should" that you dish out. Accept it in humility as reality, something that is... and THAT would be the only chance for the broken trust to be mended. Go for scoring points and it is shattered for good. Your choice, obviously.