Taomeow

Weapons have been invented by tao. The sage emulates her. Why did tao invent weapons? They found out, e.g., when they exterminated wolves in certain areas, supposedly to kind-heartedly protect the deer. I think it was about the Yellowstone, the program I saw. Anyway, once the wolves were all gone, the peaceful deer multiplied unimpeded and gobbled up all the bark from all the trees. The trees were holding together the soil; when they died, the soil fell apart. The river turned into a muddy unlivable mess. Fish died. Herons who used to fish died. Eagles who used to fowl died. Deer, in the meantime, starved because there was nothing more to eat for them. Their numbers shrunk far below what they were when the wolves with their weapons were there. The never-ending chain of death unleashed by human interference into the armed balance of species kept spreading till they reintroduced the wolves, painstakingly, over a period of 30 years. Deer population became stable. Vegetation recovered. The soil solidified. The river ran clear. Fish returned. Herons returned. And so on. Wolves did this with their weapons.

Oh, cooool! Qin Ling is so tao. You can learn by just watching the way she moves. Smooth as silk. She's also excellent at explaining the most arcane alchemical concepts in a way that makes you get it. I think you're going to soar with her seminar, you being a Crane 'n all.

To use words to assert that words are useless is one way to use words. Words are good at multitasking. To extract the idea of a LIE from the word beLIEve that contains it is a fine example of a minor alchemical transmutation on the linguistic level. The linguistic level of consciousness is not exempt from tao, it's just that we are not privy to its mysteries in our everyday use -- we use words the way a baby of three months of age would use a calligraphy brush... a lack of access to the power contained in words does not mean words are powerless, it means we are. Words have every bit of power tao intended them to have, they are as much part of its fabric as the sun and the moon and the stars, we just don't have the ear to hear and the tongue to transmute. The alchemist Fulcanelli asserted that English is the language of the gods, that all the esoteric knowledge they possess is encoded therein...

Hi Kate, a million dollar question, this, and my answer is the usual: "know thyself." I think this might be my main practice, everything else is tools, while the final product (if there is such a thing) and the ultimate prize is self-knowledge and self-mastery, hopefully leading to mastery of energies of the world (which is commensurate with one's self-mastery in all cases). So you know what you're dealing with if you know what "you" are in considerable depth (personally, not theoretically or ideologically, that is) and therefore can tell it from the "non-you." I've been through some deep feeling modalities and, e.g., discovered whole structures in my consciousness that were installed by my father that I routinely thought of as my own thoughts and my own ideas and... once you get to know the source, you immediately know if this is an organic part of your "self" or an implant. In my case, that system of values proved to be an implant, the proof was in a pure, intense feeling: "I don't want SOMEONE ELSE's stuff in MY mind." A feeling is different from an idea... when you get to feel that someone else's stuff in you is not you, it's like a splinter piercing your very aliveness, all you want is to get it out. So... deep and precise feeling mechanisms that work with difficult stuff, not just the easy kind, are the royal road to consciousness and the resulting self-knowledge. They work... hmm, not unlike an extension of the immune system into one's consciousness: a healthy immune system works by discerning between "self" and "non-self" -- whatever is not compatible with "self," it will eliminate. An unhealthy one can't tell "self" from "non-self" (which is where "autoimmune" conditions start showing up, the immune system mistaking parts of "self" for "enemy" and attacking them... happens in the realm of spiritual ideation all the time, by the way, especially in the popular but misguided attacks on the "ego..."). By the same token, it might miss the real emeny invasion (a pathogenic microorganism or a carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic chemical and the cells transformed by same into something that doesn't belong, is no longer "self.") Consciousness, ideally, works like a healthy immune system, and arrested (fragmented) consciousness, like an ailing one. Which is when people are unable to tell self from non-, friend from foe, etc., in the spirit realm. Do you mean it as a hypothetical scenario or did actual shamans turn up and seek you out?

I'm not so sure about that. The actress's words may have created a bridge... things connect when they are bridged, on all levels, from your own neural dendrites connecting synapses in your brain to your whole brain connecting with your body via neural fibers, to your whole body connecting to the rest of the universe via electrical, magnetic, thermal, chemical (e.g. breath) etc. interactions. Your body temperature being different from that of the room you're in is one such bridge -- you create a local molecular traffic around you that is shaped by your being there. If you're a cat and there's fleas in the environment, they will react to the thermal bridge -- their all senses are shaped around detecting it -- and cross it. Similarly, words you hear in a half-asleep trance-inducing state can create a brain wave pattern that is a local bridge shaped by your being, well, in trance. Trance is the state accessible to entities that can't contact you otherwise -- while, e.g., a state of your electrochemical brain activity known as "logical step by step analysis" is a lock that closes most doors to most entities. For comparison: cooling off of your mucous membranes is a state that makes them accessible to some microbes and viruses that otherwise can't penetrate it -- that's why we talk of "catching a cold," what you really catch is beings that the cold let through. (Whereas a high fever kills many of them, which is why the body raises its temperature to get rid of entities it is trying to eliminate.) Similarly, a trance state makes you, or anyone else, more "permeable" to some entities. Since the entity that you heard mentioned in your trance state was a tall angel and not a short elf, that's who "permeated" -- it's like turning when someone has called your name in the crowd, you go, "what? who? did someone say Scotty?" The same thing may have happened to that angel. Then when he (?) saw that his name was mentioned just by chance (someone in the crowd may have been calling a Scotty all right, but you turn around and discover it wasn't you they were calling, some other Scotty?), he left, end of story. We are not nearly as suggestible as we believe we are. We are much more along the lines of "more" or "less" permeable to stuff, the state we are in is a bridge or a bridge burning endeavor... We assume that if our contacts or lack thereof with other dimensions, realities, entities can be affected by the state we're in, it must be "all in our head" when they manifest. Not so. It's an interaction... a bridge between your state and the state of the universe.

Wu is different in postural alignment and is known for its reliance on deep rooting. It is not very different in other respects from all other styles derived from Chen, they have the same core dynamics. Moves differ stylistically but not conceptually; intent/focus is a function of the teaching/practicing preferences, not of the style. I am a Chen stylist but I had a chance to push hands with Wu folks and when they are good, they are very, very good. It's much more important who the teacher is than what style he/she teaches. Find out about that -- to wit, who his/her teachers were, and their teachers before them, and how long and how hard your teacher studied with whoever taught him/her, and what his/her teaching experience is, and what his/her long term students can or cannot do. Good luck!

Gui, the classic hungry ghosts of taoism, are neglected deceased ancestors, especially those who died violently and/or didn't get a proper funeral or were buried where yin feng shui is very bad (e.g., the grave gets flooded with water, or worse, is disrupted by construction.) From the way we've been treating our ancestors since the destruction of shamanic traditions, and from the way we've been treating fellow humans in countless wars, it looks like there's more gui in the invisible world interacting with our own by now than of any other kind of entities. Who they prey on -- well, the victims of choice are usually direct descendants (children and grandchildren) of the gui. If the gui has no descendants, he/she/it will prey on whoever is handy. One good remedy is an ancestral altar, with incense burnings, offerings of food, water, and wine, and occasional prostrations. This will guarantee that ancestor spirits don't go hungry -- both the act of remembering and the offering of spiritual nourishment will keep them content. A content ancestral spirit can be contacted for help and advice, the way it's always been done in all indigenous cultures. A neglected one can turn into an enemy. A sensible young woman I know had a night job at a seniors home, and at one point a ghost of an old lady who used to live there started showing up and making conversation. The young woman actually asked her why she was stuck and didn't move on somewhere in afterlife. The old lady's ghost told her, "They don't like too many drugs there (pointing a bony ghost finger in the general direction of heaven) -- when I was dying, doctors pumped me up to the gills with all kinds of drugs, and that's why they (pointing a finger again) didn't want me..." FWIW...

Hundun, I missed you! Could you please tell me WHO they were, those greatest surgeons who told you that? 'cause I have my own list of "the greatest" and the greatest one of them all dislocated my ling in the course of surgery, because that's what was necessary to do in order to put it back where it belongs... and they most definitely don't teach this in the simple game of Operation, because its creators are separated from their own not-so-simple destiny by light years of denial, wishful thinking, and ignorance... I don't mean anyone personally of course. But I do know that the simplest things are the least available ones to us these days, after a few thousand years of screwing them up... so pretending they are just there for the taking is a nice game, but I'm not playing... sorry, don't waste your marbles on me.

Hear hear. All alchemical practices I know are comprised of several different, sometimes opposite phases. Some forms of qigong might be used at stage one. Most people stay there and that's fine, alchemy is not a mass vocation. Enjoy the qigong and all its benefits, why not? There's this kids' game, Operation, and then there's med school. Someone who can play Operation is not necessarily in training to become a surgeon. Someone enjoying "simple straightforward qigong" is not necessarily in practice to master alchemy. I've seen so many kids play Operation and then tell the real surgeon his stuff is too complicated, too weird, too this too that... why don't you keep it simple? Just like the instructions on the box tell you?.. Kids......of assorted biological ages.

I finally read the whole article, and it occurred to me that it rings yet another bell... there was another study, one that involved something that changes human behavior in a fundamental, core fashion... Yup, now I remember. Too lazy to look for a reference, but I'm sure it's there somewhere, I most certainly didn't make it up. Anyway, human sexual behavior. Humans release pheromones and these are like guides for the genetically most compatible coupling-- if you're a normal healthy human, you are attracted to whoever is good for you genetically, both because you're compatible to begin with and because the kids will have this huge advantage of the best genetic compatibility of the parents. So, young women were asked by researchers to sniff T-shirts worn by guys and report on which one was the most attractive-smelling to them. Invariably a 'normal natural' woman found the T-shirt of the guy who then proved her best genetic match the most attractive. But then they tested another group of women, the ones on contraceptive pills. These invariably chose the guy who was the worst genetic match, making sure whoever they pick for a partner is bound to be Mr. Wrong and, should they ever get off the pill and procreate, Mr. Genetically Impairing Dad for the kids to come. So... which parasite affecting core human behavior produces Premarin?..

It was a San Niang day. I always watch out for their strong erratic energy and mishaps it promotes. San Niang affliction starts with moonrise, not at midnight, and sometimes even earlier -- mid-afternoon -- and lasts quite a bit longer than 24 hours, more like 34... but luckily we normally sleep through the worst part of it. The best way to deal with San Niang energy is not to encourage it in any way and if you are into any wuwei type activities, this is the perfect time to engage in same. Problem is, San Niang qi goes against that and generates impulsive acts and decisions, as well as long-term plans that will always either backfire or fall apart. This is really an interesting kind of energy, on top of its sheer accident-promoting qualities, it seems to be intelligent in a con-artist style... it sets traps, makes things look attractive that are going to deceive, stuff like that.

No, and it's an ongoing frustration of mine, something that takes away from my respect for myself. I have things going on in my own life and people who rely on me, and I know it's no excuse because I made a promise to Pedro that I would try to help if I can, and even though it wasn't verbalized, I know the universe knows when to treat a promise as an oath. But other things keep causing me to postpone and forget, then I remember and then I postpone again... it's something supernatural, this fog that doesn't let me think about how to help Pedro with any clarity. Well, I would probably have to start a campaign and try to raise money to buy him out and take him to the remote parts of the rain forest and set him free. I never did anything like that and I don't know how, I asked someone in the know and he promised to help and then didn't. Also, just setting Pedro free may not be enough -- he was captured very young and may need re-training for the wild environment... So, I don't know yet how to do it. I will probably post a thread at some point and hope for the brilliant taobum minds to brainstorm this.

I've read about another bug, the one transmitted by rats and affecting cats, who lose their appetite for rats as a result. Infected people develop an aversion to rats as food too. Which in some parts of the world is a trait welcomed by the species. Nature plays funny games. I used to drive fast but the price of speeding tickets went up so steeply that I don't anymore. I was nicknamed all kinds of cat names since birth. (My favorite was the Ukrainian for kitten, kotenya, the only word of affection my father used.) Circa the sixth grade, me and my girlfriends were known as "the cats gang." My favorite movie director used to be Federico Fellini, who reportedly invested quite a bit of his own money into creating shelters for homeless cats and campaigned successfully to make it illegal in Italy to perform medical experiments on felines (in the US, hundreds of thousands suffer the tortures of hell every year at the hands of "researchers" -- I've signed petitions to stop it but the devil we're up against is too powerful here). In Peru, while I was still telepathic after the ayahuasca ceremonies, a jaguar named Pedro (which is almost Pietro ) who is kept in a cage told me that he either goes free or the world goes kaboom, our choice. I believed him.

Sorry, I have no idea -- there's a thrift shop next door and that's where I got them, they look new but have no labels, tags or any markings. They look rather basic -- lightweight but stay put on the carpet, foam padded, and they are slanted (one side higher than the other).

All right, I'm converted. Got myself a pair of push-up bars. These shouldn't create the stiffness problem, because they can be positioned every which way to make sure no group of muscles is getting a free ride at the expense of the overworked other group. And the bummer wrists position of the regular push-up is successfully eliminated by these. (The kung fu guy in the video who is doing this pushing with his fists knows what he's doing -- the non-twisting of the wrists is to push-ups what the non-twisting of the knees is to taiji.) Now I'm going against my own religion with these. Thanks a lot! -- but I have grown very lazy in my upper body (you know how the classics say "in taiji there's no arms?" -- I think I've been taking this a bit too literally, time to do something different...)

Mal, you successfully cracked me up once again! As for the meditation proper and the objections on another forum against "improper" shielding... Both ring bells. The beginning stages of the White Light meditation are indeed an old root practice -- I know three more that start out with bringing the light to the top of the head, directing it downward, taking it from there. One of them is called the Lightning (sic) Gourd, then there's the Golden Shower, then there's the Purple Rose (a taoist pet name for the North Pole Star). But the shielding part is not included in the versions I know in the form offered. The Golden Shower does include a shield, which is made permeable for everything except malicious intent. I think it's a very important technicality. I don't use defensive shielding of this kind however because I used to and found out it doesn't work well -- I must be missing some other technicality. Instead, I use offensive shielding when needed, as needed. This way, you don't encapsulate yourself -- you encapsulate whoever/whatever you don't want to "get to you." Offensive shielding can be fun, and one method indeed relies on the laugability factor (much like in Harry Potter -- "Ridiculous!") You turn the light off around the "bad guy," don't visualize anything, use your "dark focus," then slowly pour a bucket of thick honey over his head (again, don't "visualize," you must "sensualize" for this), then cut open a feather pillow and shake out the feathers over his head (use your kinesthetic sense, again, not visuals); when you're done, turn the light on, step back and admire your work. This is good with lesser pests. For serious adversaries, there's more serious methods of "psychic self-defense."

I know su jok -- the Korean method -- that works with painful tender points on hands and feet. The ones that matter are VERY painful. They are pretty hard to find, partially because the best su jok uses "the system of the insect" rather than "the system of the human" -- so you are, technically, looking for the karmic problems of an individual of a particular species encapsulated in a point on the "virtual body" of a different one! Once you've found it (or rather, "if" you've found it), pain is going to be worse than anything you've ever experienced with any piercing acupuncture in any spot at any depth. The woman who taught me told me she fainted when her teacher used the tip of a ball point pen to press on a point on her fingernail -- not too hard -- and that this is fairly typical. However, healing can be instantaneous if the right point is found.

I'm hoping it is. Otherwise all those bird-gods of antiquity take on a whole new meaning.

I've always thought of meditation as either a tool, an ally, or a method of transportation (or all of these) -- what shamans call a "horse." Rhythmic drumbeat, e.g., is a "horse." Chanting is a "horse." And so on. When I use scissors, a tool, I don't focus on the scissors but I don't ignore them either -- why cut a finger?.. I focus on what I'm cutting, but loosely -- why cut a jagged, tense, sloppy cut? -- and hold the tool in my peripheral awareness (my fingers are aware of it even if my eyes and my mind are on something else), and don't run ahead of myself toward the final product I'm going to make -- I am busy cutting what I'm cutting right now, but my greater awareness also knows what it is I'm doing this for, of course. So it remembers, although peripherally at the moment of the actual here-now cut, not only that I'm using the scissors but also what it is I'm using them for -- to wit, that I intend to make a pair of cloth taiji shoes in the traditional Chinese style. The scissors are my mediation, what is being used toward this goal, and also my skill, what I've learned to use and how, and also my natural ability -- I naturally have fingers suitable for applying to many different tools -- and also something mystical (how a cut separates what was whole following my intent to unite the parts into a new and different whole is mysterious enough, isn't it?.. Chopping wood, carrying water! Supernatural!) "Meditation" has the same root as "medium," "intermediate," "mediator," "immediate," "middle," and so on. It's all of these things just like the scissors are when used as my "medium" -- they "mediate" what I'm doing, they are "in the middle" of my endeavor, or I'm "in the middle" of using them, they are "immediate" to what I'm doing, and so on. So I don't focus on the scissors and don't ignore them -- "the middle way" -- I use them as an "intermediary" between what I am, what I have, and what I am trying to accomplish. Likewise, if I'm driving a car, I'm not focusing on the car and not ignoring it either. Again, the car is my meditation -- I use it to get where I intend to go, but I don't use it for the sake of using it. Grown-ups normally don't. Kids who have just started driving drive for driving's sake. Meditators who meditate for meditation's sake are such kids, they are learning what meditation is like, what meditation is for, and once they start getting it, that's when meditation may start turning into what it really is -- a tool, an ally, a means of transportation, or all of these. Before this happens, there's nothing wrong with "learning to drive" or "learning to use sharp objects" for that matter -- but once you've learned, you're not going to cut things just for the hell of it nor drive just for the hell of it. You're going to make something with your tool, and you're going to try to get somewhere with your "horse." "Just being there" is the learning stage. Meditation needs to be learned before one actually uses it. How and what for is only limited by the nature and quality of one's meditation -- a horse won't fetch a stick for you, you need a dog for this... nor will he catch mice, you need a cat... nor will he be in good health if you feed him spiritual fables instead of oats... so "appropriate use" of appropriate tools, allies, and means of transportation is the next learning stage. Which meditation? How? And what for? That's the stage when you need a good teacher... because in the spiritual realm, it's not always easy for a lay meditator to tell a horse from a cat, strangely enough.

LOL, our current Kali Yuga began on January 23, 3102 BC (Gregorian calendar) and is traditionally thought to last 432,000 years. A bit late for a welcome... but what's worse, waaaay early for to expect things to improve "here and in the world in general" due to any other developments than your own effort. Sucks, huh? Yeah, bro'... I've been chalking up to Kali Yuga all the "things not going my way" for several lifetimes... but then I saw the light. The light is shining around a sign written in a pattern of stars in the sky that says, "if not you, who?.." Can you see it?.. Pick a starry night and look... look far, and look closely. There's an index finger there, right in the sky, in the pattern of the stars, and it's not pointing at the moon. It's pointing at the sign. And the sign says, "if not you, who?.."

Thanks for letting me do this, Pietro -- I did the divination and will write up what I got soon (it's late...) As for references, that's a separate discussion, so -- divination soon, re references later.

Thanks, Richard! Yeah, it's in the asking... and how and why it is in the asking can't be understood without actually asking, and there's many, many other human situations besides a divination that are exactly like that too -- asking directly is what we've been trained not to do in "all" or "most" of our interactions. Every four-year-old knows that already, and the longer we live, the less direct we get with each other and with reality itself. When I was four, I remember getting smacked for asking a neighbor, "are you so fat because you eat too much, or because you have a baby in your belly?" And at five, I got smacked again, when I asked a classmate, "is your mom in jail because she stole something or because she hurt somebody?" And then at six, for asking a teacher, "did you correct a correct spelling of mine because you don't know this word, or because you don't like me and didn't want to give me the highest grade?" Instances like these taught me (and everybody else) by about seven I think that a direct and open question is going to bring about trouble. A pattern of evasive maneuvers "around" the issue instead of open and honest curiosity (which gets punished or otherwise discouraged early on) solidifies in early childhood and then we forget that it wasn't always like that, that our thinking wasn't always evasive, that we were born with an inquisitive mind and faced the world in innocence, wanting to know "everything" about it. Making a habit of the I Ching divinations can break this superimposed pattern of approaching reality on artificially enforced "indirect" terms and take one back to that innocence, that open face-to-face dialog with reality. That's pretty scary for someone shaped by the "evasive" pattern. And pretty painful for someone who might realize there's no human being in his or her world who can be approached like that, in full innocence and courage of uncensored "tell me what I want to know, not what you think I should be wanting to know or can be trusted to know or am allowed to know." After years of using the I Ching for divination, I am still afraid to ask some questions... am embarrassed to ask other questions... am not smart enough to ask yet other questions... so the problem is not whether I trust and understand what she answers, I pretty much always do... the problem is how ready I am to ask and how honest I am -- and how much courage I have reclaimed to actually face the answers, after lifelong conditioning toward having none.

How about addressing my actual argument though -- "stiffness?" I've seen bodybuilders who are unable to quite turn their heads far enough back to look behind them, e.g. in traffic so as to check for the cars not seen in the mirrors. Or even shrug their shoulders. Shrug... blessings back!