Taomeow

You're living in a dream world, Neo.

Allow me to be the judge of what I need when.

I don't get angry when I stub my toe. I just try to remember where that stone lies in my path and walk around it the next time.

Now you got it. However, to a teacher of the Badmaev lineage Maoshan is small fry, a fraction of what they've been up to. Physicians to tzars, teachers to Dalai Lamas. OK, now I've dropped the name. Let's see what you can do with it...

Not my fault. Read up on the historic/geographic peculiarities of the place, you might understand why it's a "pout-pourri." I almost forgot -- originally, I said something about Maoshan, you said, gimme a reference, meaning wherever my information is coming from isn't good unless it's from a written source, I then gave you one from Eva Wong since that was the only written reference I had handy, you then said Eva Wong is not a taoist, yada yada... fine, but then you come back and announce that I know Maoshan from Eva Wong. What's wrong with this picture?.. So now you believe me, that's good news. Thank you. Eva Wong was my written reference, is what she was. Max was someone whose seminar I attended years after I made my first peep about Maoshan. Now I'm off the hook, right?

You are laughably wrong. I come from Altai, not from Eva Wong and not from what I heard in the States. My link to Siberian-Mongolian-Manchu-shamanic/Maoshan/Tibetan Buddhist/Russian vorozhba traditions is a birthright. When I was fifteen, I walked in an orthodox church in Kiev, the Vladimir Cathedral, a rather magnificent affair and one of the few functioning churches at the time, just out of curiosity -- I was on a trip during spring vacations and visiting places of interest with three of my girlfriends -- so we walked in and I just stood there watching the service and all of a sudden a bunch of old ladies started turning around and coming closer and then a few of them fell on their knees and started praying to me. Hitting their foreheads on the floor in front of my feet, no less. I ran out, terrified, and kept running for a mile, face burning, heart confused. Oh, by the way, I was wearing a miniskirt and some make-up, and I smoked and drank at that early age, but I was a virgin yet, and that's what I heard them mumble -- "the virgin, the holy virgin!" If you can tell me what this means -- and I'm not making it up, though of course I can never "prove" it -- but let's assume you believe me, just for a second... what do you make of it?.. I don't know what to make of it myself, but what I'm trying to say is, the very least of my learning has taken place in the course of "orderly" activities like reading books and attending seminars. The bulk of what I've learned, and from whom, and how exactly, I couldn't even begin telling to someone of your persuasion. Sorry. Still, you're laughably wrong when you assume anyone's inferiority here. There's not many people inferior to you on this forum, YM, really. You might like to believe the opposite, understandably... but it's simply not the case. We're not a bunch of suckers ISO straightening out, most of us. Really...

Very nice, Daoseeker. One point though that might redeem BKF in your eyes to an extent: "fire" and "water" is a legitimate description of the main internal route for the gong to take via a corresponding set of practices, not a name of a "school" or anything like that, just a pointer to the direction inner space-time events are encouraged to take. The terms are used in their Wuxing sense. A fire practice is an upward flow, a water practice, a downward flow. You "raise" things with a fire practice -- both spiritually ("toward a higher goal, a higher entity, higher accomplishments," etc.), qi-wise (directing it upward), time-wise (moving "forward" rather than "back,") shape-wise (pyramid arrangements with the "crowning" events expected at the top), and in terms of values cultivated (heaven, yang-slanted). With a water practice, you "drop" things - spiritually ("back to the 'lower' developmental origins, 'lower' expectations,' 'lowering' yourself into the world rather than 'elevating' yourself above it, etc.), qi-wise (directing it downward), time-wise (moving "back" rather than "forward," "returning"), shape-wise (non-hierarchical arrangements without any "crowning" events expected at the top, an egalitarian flow of events with no distinct "more significant" or "less significant" ones discerned), and in terms of values cultivated (earth, yin-slanted). I don't know what BKF means when he makes the distinction, but I've heard it made by other teachers in the sense I've presented above, and in my own experience, they are distinctly different practices. I don't think I'd be able to "prove it with scientific references" but it is my impression that "water" practices are closer to taoism's origins while "fire" ones are the ones that have been influenced most heavily by other modalities (hinduism, buddhism). Am I making sense to you?

By the way, "Westerners" is an interesting term in this sort of discussions. Perhaps I'm guilty of having used it too on occasion in the sense "arrogant idiots," but... Well, let's see... What do we call people -- way over a billion of them -- who learn a curriculum of standard Western sciences for their standard schooling; subscribe to a state-sponsored official ideology, that of atheism and "scientific materialism;" burn all scriptures they can find, demolish taoist and buddhist temples, then rebuild a few of them to boost tourism, and appoint Communist party officials as priests and monks -- the real ones having been either killed or locked up in concentration camps just a historic second earlier; and so on?.. Tip: we can't really call them Europeans, nor Americans... so when we talk about those big bad clueless Westerners who do those horrible stupid things to taoism, we don't include them, right? But... looks like one doesn't have to be a Westerner in order to do reprehensible things with, to, against taoism?.. And if one is not a Westerner, does it guarantee a wonderfully tactful and respectful treatment of taoism?.. See above... Mike, excellent analysis! Thank you.

You mean you're going to give me a massage? If not, why are you telling me to relax? I am pretty chill as it is, but if what you mean is you can work on my right ankle long distance, by projecting your healing qi -- I did some minor but annoying damage to it yesterday -- I would appreciate it.

What's that, a jab or a psychic reading? Please avoid ad hominem, YM, you're very prone to it and I'm very alert to it.

His main point is to profess superiority of his understanding of taoism over that of a bunch of others. He chooses easy targets like the infamous author of the Tao of Pooh to make his point. He flexes his intellectual muscles against a bunch of mental midgets and it makes him feel strong. However, he's as much off the mark as the nincompoops he pours his sarcasm out on, as clueless about what taoism actually "does" as everybody he puts down. He thinks taoism is believing "this rather than that" in your head. He thinks what he believes "about" it is bigger-better than what others believe "about" it. He thinks that's because he read some elitist edition books, university press, etc., while "others" read popular ones. That's the core of his message.

Witch, have you actually heard Icke say those nasty things about taoists/shamans or did you hear someone else say that he says that? Given that he took ayahuaska in Peru under shamanic guidance and his subsequent activities are the direct outcome of the revelation he had then and there, it is highly unlikely that he would. We do have the R-complex in the brain, the short for "reptilian," that's a scientific fact. There's practices that can activate it and throw you out of the human mind into the mind of the reptile. There was a time when I did this to myself. It lasted for about two months. What did it feel like? Not good, not bad, not human. Doesn't mean I'm not human. Means that there's parts of my brain that aren't, ditto parts of your brain, and everyone else's. "Reptilians" might simply be guys who utilize the R-complex more intensely than most of us, are tuned in to that part more than, e.g., the midbrain where we humans reside emotionally. Anyway... we seem to be talking about several very complex issues all at once, and it's not good, each one of them merits one's full attention, and not in passing. Maybe someday. You said, "we deliberately upset the ecological equilibrium" (don't remember the exact words, sorry if my quote is only approximate), aha -- we? WE?.. No we aren't doing this, "they" are. THEY. So the real solution to the global warming and all other climate problems would be to find a way to not let THEM do this to our climate and the rest of our vital parameters. Meaning, if you don't want earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes of abnormal frequency and magnitude, don't be a "coincidence theorist," look at HAARP, look at the evidence. There's a lot to unravel and NONE of the information worth taking for face value is going to come from a "reputable source" by THEIR definition -- the sources THEY decide are reputable are serving THEM. And we are not them, remember?.. And don't let them brainwash you into thinking "conspiracy theorists" are suckers and "coincidence theorists" got it together. There's basket cases on both sides of the tracks, but history teaches us that it has always been the conspiracy that moved history, not coincidence. Taoists are into immortality because immortality research is what was being financed by the emperors, and the emperors wanted immortality because there were times when 9 out of 10 of them wound up assassinated as the outcome of conspiracies -- not coincidences. Conspiracies are real even if information about them is deliberately intermixed with disinformation and garbage. It's just that they are actually more monstrous than an average, or even above-average, human mind is capable of believing without dislocating itself. Use your R-complex and you will know.

When I was at the zoo the last time, I saw lots and lots of animals who have surrendered. There was this one black gorilla there, a huge male, who was just sitting, in a completely human pose, looking into the void. He wasn't paying any attention to anyone or anything -- but then, for a few seconds, he made eye contact with me, held his gaze, then slowly turned away. I nearly died of shame and grief.

Well, yes, the cold-blooded ones. I'm not sure what species they are exactly, they have never behaved as members of the human race toward fellow humans, so anything is possible -- it's more important what they "do" than what they "are" -- like in all other cases, actually -- and David Icke is so damn good at explaining and documenting what they "do" that what he thinks about what they "are" is almost irrelevant. Though Al Gore does look a lot like a large lizard, doesn't he? Honestly? And Icke thinks he's full of shit. I dunno... I've never paid much attention because it's not my imprint to notice something like this -- they often say "energy follows attention" but you can bet your life on the opposite being true first -- "attention follows energy." Imprinted energy patterns will dictate where your attention will go, what you will resonate with, what, out of the information soup you're swimming in on a daily basis, you will navigate toward. Have you ever seen Magritt's painting titled "Personal Things?" I'll try to look it up online and post it to illustrate what I mean if I find it. Global warming may or may not be the number one threat, but there's so many others competing for the spot... you can't really "educate" people about what they should fear the most when the whole scene is turning so damn scary, so utterly fubar... (I know, I know... some would disagree, and I usually say to them -- you haven't been paying attention! ) So for me... on the immediate emotional-response level, you can't really fear a warming scenario too much if you spent your early age in Siberia. If it was the next Ice Age they were concerned about, I would be way more focused on the issue... where I lived we used to get minus seventy-five -- with government-supplied, and unreliable, and occasionally nonexistent, central heating. You talk to someone like me about "warming" and my spontaneous emotional response is, "yeah! Bring it on! " I don't want to question the accuracy of your information, what I'm trying to say is, my attention naturally gravitates toward some altogether different dangers to ponder and try to do something to avert. If I don't forget, I'll post an account of a dream I had that accurately reflects my own premonitions and anticipations. I call it The Dream of the Red Suitcase...

Like an animal in a cage.

It's interesting how different people envision different end-of-world scenarios. Usually has to do with the way they were born and with their Wuxing phase. An asfixiated birth and the Water phase envision some kind of suffocation (methane, flood). Overheated, crazy-heart-rate sympathetic birth and Fire phase, nuclear blasts and fire from the sky. Stuck, blocked birth and Earth phase, the dying of the environment around them, piles of garbage forcing life out of the planet. Under-too-much-pressure, "squished" Metal brith, fascism, concentration camps, totalitarian repression. Exhausted-in-fighting for your life Wood birth, wars, wars, wars -- life against anti-life. Caesarean birth, expectations of intervention from the outside -- aliens, UFOs, gods, spirit helpers, etc.. (and no Wuxing imprint). Unconscious near-death birth -- no end-of-the-world beliefs, a conviction that it will somehow work out by itself -- just like it did that previous time; this is due to the fact that the unconscious life-and-death memory is not available even to the unconscious, there's a "dead zone" inside one's developmental memory. I kid you not. People who commit suicide do it in a way that mirrors the way they were born and their phase: if there was a cord around the neck, they will hang themselves, if they were suffocating, they will put their head in the oven or drown themselves, if there was a sympathetic fight, they will shoot themselves, if there was a parasympathetic shut-down, they will take sleeping pills, and so on. Personal scenarios are usually projected onto the universal one, so all of our expectations are invariably colored by who we are and what we've been through already, in this-here life, its crucial, imprinting life-and-death beginning we don't consciously remember. (Well, I do, but I worked on that for four years... I didn't either before I did.) Reptilians, who used to be born from an egg (before GM that gave them a live-birth option) via cracking it, however, wouldn't think twice cracking the world open, shattering it like an eggshell -- 'cause that's their genetic memory of "the way things really should be." Which is why it's the most likely scenario. They do want to do it in their very DNA. Because they never had a chance, and because that's what their DNA keeps telling them they "need to do," they will always be trying to do it. "How" they will do it, and "when," and whether they will succeed, is another story...

Have you read the Zhuangzi story of Sudden and Abrupt who bore holes in Primal Unity because they figured he/she/it needed eyes, ears, nose, etc.? Loss of Primal Unity is like loss of outbreath when you're about to breathe in. Tao pulsates. At least that's what I've been observing so far, but of course I haven't seen it all. In the Dragon Gate book about Wang Liping, they mention another point, the Gate of Death, somewhere in that same vicinity you so eloquently outlined. Do you know where that is?

I'm perplexed. The discussion about what belongs to "taoism" that we were having in the other thread which this is supposed to be the continuation of is not the same as the discussion of who is called a "taoist." We were talking about whether taoism is shamanic in its origins and whether there's sects in existence today that still retain their shamanic patterns, both in form and in substance. How this inquiry is answered by what Saso thinks about who can or can't be called a taoist is way over the top of my head. Saso got some credit points from me when I was reading his White Tiger, Blue Dragon for presenting genuine taoist rituals as they actually happen, describing the arrangements of taoist altars, and emphasizing the yin-yang/Wuxing underpinnings of every thing taoist, the primal importance of this system in all endeavors he had witnessed. This part was excellent, since he was talking about what taoists "do," presenting empirical observations. However, as soon as he moved on, not to what taoists do but to what he, Saso, "thinks" about it, he shot himself in the foot so many times and so brutally, I can't even begin telling you how many things are wrong with the picture he paints once he starts painting not from real life but from his head. For starters, saying that a taoist is an ordained priest, period, leaves out in the cold quite a few fathers and mothers of taoism, including Laozi, who was a government official rather than an ordained priest, Zhuangzi, who was never a priest or ordained, Lady Wei the founder of Maoshan Pai, Sun Bu-er the Immortal Female, who was a married woman raising her family till she was 57 and then a student of a recluse in the mountains and never ordained as a taoist priest, many famous female taoists in general, who were more often than not married women practicing either in secret or with the husband's blessing, and all the taoist recluses and hermits of both genders initiated either naturally or supernaturally by lone teachers live, dead, or immortal, and occasionally "born with it." Peng Zu, who the legend has it was the first man to attain longevity and immortality the taoist way, may have originated the idea of "cultivation" as the taoist way. He was never ordained, declined an offer of a high post in the government, and was similar in this respect to many other noteworthy taoists who chose to live among people or as reclusive hermits but refused to enter officialdom in any capacity. Perhaps instead of splitting hairs about who is or isn't a "taoist," one should ask who is or isn't a "man of tao," a "woman of tao" -- that's the way taoist classics talk about these things, a "taoist" by Saso's definition is not necessarily a "man of tao" of a "woman of tao," and likewise, a man or a woman of tao has seldom been a "taoist" by that definition. There's more that's wrong with his picture, YM, way more. Saso doesn't seems to believe that sex is real, he thinks only masturbation takes place... oops, I mean, he doesn't seem to believe that taoists invoke spirits, he thinks they only visualize them. With all due respect, he can visualize all he likes, but he won't conceive of what taoism actually does with spirits and deities this way anymore than masturbation will conceive a child. As for shamanism, he is not merely clueless, he simply goes ahead and makes things up when talking about it! A peculiar case of fragmentation of consciousness, where yin-yang, Wuxing-derived practices are acknowledged by him as the central practices of taoism -- not the "root" but the ever-current essence of taoism -- and yet maintains shamanism has nothing to do with it? Beg your pardon, Fu Xi was a shaman-king, and Hetu and Luoshu were shamanic transmissions, and all sects of taoism -- not "some" but "all" -- acknowledge these as the primary truths of taoism. Where did the baby go when our respected scholars were busy throwing away the bathwater?..

Thanks, Cat, that was priceless! YM, why don't you tell Ken Cohen that because he thinks exactly the way I do and you don't, he's not real, not educated, not a taoist, and belongs in that dump of discarded wannabes with Eva Wong and the rest of us? Or better yet, why don't you answer my question instead of telling me what to do? I'll try again: what do you do with your taoism?

Definitely because of that, but not because it is considered "superstitious and unproductive" -- but because the destruction of shamanic traditions worldwide has long been, not marginal but central to a certain interesting agenda. To disassociate taoism from shamanism means to kill it, by severing it from its live nourishing source, cutting off its roots, drying up its spiritual essence, unplugging it from its divine current. Original, genuine taoism is indistinguishable from shamanism, and its "new and improved" versions are indistinguishable from what the sages called degradation, what they referred to as "in the human world, tao has been destroyed." In fact, all "more recent," post-shamanic developments of taoism, the creation of multiple schools and sects, the absorption of Buddhist and Confucian ideation by many of them, etc., are in and of themselves the practical outcome of chronic dissatisfaction with this process of degradation -- ritual becoming empty, clergy becoming corrupt, scriptures becoming mindless drivel, lifestyles becoming "comfortably numb," conformist, etc.. Every new sect started out by formulating its dissatisfaction with this state of affairs and seeking to purify the way. Every next one did the same to the previous one. However, the ones that just stayed put, like the magical sects (with the exception of perhaps Kunlun which was heavily influenced by Tibetan Buddhism, in particular those of the Buddhist sects that practiced magic), didn't stay put because they were "unproductive" -- quite the opposite is true... They remained shamanic to the core precisely because they were productive to the max. They remained secretive precisely because they couldn't possibly survive any other way. YM, please quit telling me that I don't have a clue. It simply isn't the case. I live my taoism. What do you do with yours? Poke people in the eye with your only mantra, "I know and you don't, I'm special and you aren't, I am the chosen one and you're the discarded one, I'm THE taoist and you're chopped liver," etc., this part I've seen... I'd be curious to find out if there's anything else it's good for, your kind of taoism as practiced by you. What else do you do with it?..

Well, YM and I exchanged some PMs and it became clear that we can be mutually respectful as individuals but we aren't going to agree on anything, including what is and what isn't a "finding." Maoshan Magical doesn't exist to him as a distinct, separate, and legitimate taoist sect... and none of my findings are going to change it. Whereas his findings, however convincing, remind me of an episode from my favorite Russian novel, one of whose protagonists, the devil, complains at some point that an atheistic scholar had nearly driven him insane proving to him with irrefutable evidence that he doesn't exist. The devil was game for the scholarly exchange for a while and offered "six proofs of god's existence" (and, by extension, his own); the scholar was prepared to strike them all down with counterproof, and made a perfect intellectual case. The devil had no choice but to slap him with "proof number seven" then... empirical evidence.

I can barely type what I'm typing because most of my fingers are glued together with Crazy Glue on account of a tube thereof having exploded in my hands earlier tonight. This happened to me for the first time in my life, and will probably prevent me from practicing the Red Phoenix and the Golden Flower, with their relaxed hand mudras, for as long as it will take me to scrape the damn thing off. The reason I tried to open the tube to begin with is that I intended to glue my wristband ID from the Kunlun seminar, with its long wavy dragon (of the particular variety small enough and worm-like enough to hide in the folds of one's clothes), into my scrapbook. Some forces started working against my Kunlun initiation in advance. The morning after I made up my mind to go to the San Diego Kunlun seminar, I woke up to an extraordinarily painful rash, possibly shingles, all over my face. I did a round of home remedies and improved just to the point where I still couldn't recognize myself in the mirror but at least I could smile or sneeze without screaming anymore. The night before the seminar I decided I couldn't possibly go, but then Chris the writing knight in shining Kunlun armor, and the I Ching consulted on the issue, together succeeded in convincing me otherwise. So I bit the bullet and went. There were perhaps around fifty people in attendance. Max wore stylish Chinese clothes and a wide bracelet on his wrist. The bracelet, upon being removed on a later occasion, revealed a deep scar that looked as though someone had once tried to severe his hand with an ax and nearly succeeded. Which didn't seem to interfere with its strength and speed when Max delivered a cannonball-loud slapping Hot Palm treatment to one of the participants, pummeling away at his bare torso as though trying to demolish a prohibition on corporal punishments. The eight hours spread over two days -- Kunlun level I seminar, which is where I went (there was also a level II seminar for people who had practiced the first one for a minimum of six months) -- proved eventful. Now then. I have never worked for personnel and have never handled benefits, but one thing I know: I'm not someone who will give a controversial teacher the benefit of the doubt until he or she has somehow earned this benefit. I view an experiential tabula rasa with implicit suspicion. Any which claims anyone might write on it, I would want validated somehow. Tell me, show me, get me to feel it, get me to get it. Not in my mind though... Get me to get it with my life, with the very aliveness of me. I don't care about any other kinds of "proof." On the other hand, I'm not someone who makes up her mind in advance about anything (took a while to learn not to), particularly about certain things supposedly being once and for all, for all purposes and for all eternity, impossible. No. There's no such thing as impossible things; if you think there is, you haven't been paying attention to the universe. Miracles? I'm all for miracles, I don't think our world could emerge on any other, non-miraculous premise. It is not the outcome of a logical process; it is not a rational thing that anyone can account for by any rational arguments; it's inherently miraculous. Anyone who believes that "anything is possible" is a wrong statement holds a flaky belief with no basis in reality. Now miracle workers, especially professional, money-making miracle workers, are a different matter altogether. I trust the miraculous universe; it doesn't mean being gullible, it means being reasonable. I don't so readily trust miracle workers, neither great nor small. People are not, generally speaking, trustworthy. People who make money doing whatever they are doing are particularly non-trustworthy. It's the nature of the human beast. I don't trust the so-called "modern scientists" either. If someone withholds or takes away their research grant unless they lie, they lie. If someone guarantees no career advancement ever unless they lie, they lie. If someone orchestrates peer pressure unless they lie, they lie. If someone... and someone always does. What's "proof?.." Of anything?.. To me, it is as non-linear as the world I find myself in. Proof is a pattern, a tapestry, a piece of brocade, a dance, a symphony, a meaningful congruence between what you question and what life answers. If it's step by step, it's not a dance -- it's a marching army, and an army always marches toward death. Note by note, it's not a symphony -- it's the tinkering of an ignoramus who owns the instrument but has never learned how to play. Argument by argument, it's no proof! Proof is time-sensitive. A post-factum "I told you so" is not it, anymore than an a priori "I believe." Proof is space-sensitive, place-sensitive. In China, "fear of cold" is a disease a patient will complain of and the doctor will treat; the patient is not expected to prove she suffers from the "fear of cold," the doctor is not expected to suspect a lie, and the proof is in the pulse. Our PDR doesn't contain such a disease. Do Chinese patients and doctors alike lie then? To whom? To themselves? To each other? To us? To god?.. Proof is, then, space-time sensitive, but... Our reality is not comprised of space-time only. There's things beyond -- like intent, like co-creation, like dream-dimensions, like tao... Proof ends where reality begins. Only unreal things can be "proved" and measurements that "prove" can only be taken in frozen, stopped, dead environments, under "controlled" conditions, under formaldehyde. Life and its theoretical variety known as the afterlife don't yield to the "prove it" demand. Life has nothing to prove. (to be continued)