Taomeow

Mutilator, don't mutilate my posts anymore or I'll install a Wheel of Shadows in your cochlea.

Grrr... Eva Wong is a lineage taoist. (Are you, Mr. Kennedy?) Her feng shui guide is a professional quality manual suitable to be used as a textbook for bright beginners, and a fine antidote to the multitudes of McFengshui books out there. I've come across her detractors before, but not one of them was a taoist, interestingly enough... Understanding of taoist terminology comes from studying the basics -- hetu and luoshu, yin-yang, wuxing, bagua, ganying, I Ching -- and practicing the nonverbal arts and sciences of taoism. Alchemical instructions are obscure by design -- one is not supposed to understand them without a good grasp of the taoist basics, and indeed doesn't in most cases, not just the finest translator but even a native Chinese speaker who is not familiar with the foundations of taoist cosmology. The terminological difficulty is secondary; the primary difficulty is a lack of taoist education, and no amount of linguistic prowess is a good substitute for that. I remember reading, years ago, Cleary's little intro to a few taoist classics -- "Vitality, Energy, Spirit" (that's something Cleary does, he "overtranslates" -- instead of calling things their proper Chinese names -- "jing, qi, shen" -- and providing extensive footnotes...) -- anyway, as I was saying, I was reading this little book before I ever got to study taoist cosmology, and some alchemist goes, by way of instructions, "Heaven above, thirty-two, Earth below, thirty-two." I was so baffled. And I'm so NOT baffled today... What about you, Mr. Kennedy? Do you, or your translator wife, know what this means, and why? As the Yuan Dao first put it (to be repeated by Laozi and Zhuangzi), you use nets to catch fish, once the fish is caught, the net is forgotten; you use snares to catch rabbits, once the rabbit is caught, the snare is forgotten; you use words to catch principles, once the principles are caught, the words are forgotten. To this I would add that if you are a pike, you don't need a net to catch fish to begin with; if you are a fox, you don't need snares to catch rabbits to begin with; and if you know taoist basics, you don't need precise translations... Call it Heaven or Tian or True Yang or The Creative or The Ruler or whatever you like, I still understand exactly what it's about and why it's thirty-two above. Do you?..

The ocean of Tao kills itself with sonar waves by the naval base

This must be THE method, because I did something to my left knee exactly this way too. I was going downhill on a hiking trail overgrown with agaves (they have daggers for leaves, really vicious) and got tired of maneuvering around them so as not to get stabbed, decided to run, slipped... and wound up with a useless knee that got clicky, swollen and painful. I cured it with mustard-honey packs overnight every day for a few days (mix a T of fresh, angry dry mustard with enough honey to make a paste, apply to knee, liberally, cover with a piece of cling-wrap, secure with a bandage and then wrap a wool scarf around it.) I used this method on people with chronic knee problems too, it works in every case provided they stick to a wheat-free diet. (Wheat is the biggest offender of joints and flexibility's enemy.)

By the way, the central prayer of Judaism, Shema, is a haiku: Shema Yisraeil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad (Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.)

Feel like changing scene... Floyd: "hot air for the cool breeze, cold comfort for change?"

I think it's more an issue of values than abilities. My kids were also "born just so" (one extra flexible, the other one tight as a drum -- even though they are twins) but it flipped over later simply because the flexible one wasn't interested in maintaining it while the stiff one took a yoga class and then taiji. The body forgives years and even decades of stiffness if you start viewing flexibility as a value and working on it. I was a lot stiffer at 30 than at 40, and by now I'm more flexible than I was in my teens. That's because I admire freedom of movement in space and my role model is the octopus. "We become what we admire."

LOL... when I was 16 I set my bed on fire by not following this rule. There's nothing in the world nastier than a smothering matterss. You don't detect it fast enough -- on the outside there's this tiny little hole but inside it starts developing a volcano. I only noticed that something was wrong when my bum got hot for no reason I was aware of... Must not smoke in bed! -- the only anti-smoking truth you'll ever hear.

Drew, OK, beginners have had their field day, now let's talk advanced lotus positions. Can you balance yourself standing on the palms of your hands with your legs in full lotus? How about hanging from a bar? How about drawing the yin-yang symbol with your whole body while in full lotus, aiming to brush the floor with your head? How about Yogic Sleep -- roll on your back with your legs in full lotus, put your arms over your knees, take a nap? How about Snake Queen -- legs in lotus, arms in lotus behind the back of your head?

Can you hear the wind in the wings of a sparrow? A Starbucks scone crumbs.

The Great and Most Sacred Oracle of Ignorami Obscuranti Xenophobi Illiterati told you this, I'm sure!

Kui Xing shines above, my tea reflects its flavor: lemon and honey

Yes, I've heard about it. I wonder what the Chinese term was for "reflected light." I sometimes think of taoist masters as "lords of ganying." Although some of the best are "ladies."

The benefits you discover once you do it. At one point I suggested an exercise at another forum -- balance a raw (undamaged) egg on one end (not on the side) -- on the point, so it stands rather than lies. This little but educational exercise can nonverbally, kinesthetically explain to one how precise centering must be for someone or something mobile and alive to be truly "centered." A fraction of a millimeter off and the balancing doesn't happen. You either find the egg's center or you don't; it's either balanced or it isn't; there's no in-betweens. Well, the full lotus is similar in this respect. There's no other position for the human bodymind that can spell out (nonverbally) whether you are centered and balanced. "Thinking" in the head (or 'non-thinking' for that matter, which is still an in-the-head activity even if it's an inactivity) that one is centered and balanced is common, and commonly self-deceptive; full lotus reveals the truth. Can't point you to any good sources, sorry, but I can tell you how I learned it. A number of years ago, someone invited me to an informal (just a gathering of friends and family members) all-Chinese qigong class; most participants didn't speak any English. I started doing what they were doing and then they all assumed the lotus pose for the final meditation. I got in a half lotus which was all I thought I could do. The teacher said, no, full lotus please. I laughed and said, yeah right, I can't do that. He said, impatiently and indignantly, you don't respect me at all, do you? I go, what do you mean? He says, you think I'd ask you to sit in full lotus if you couldn't? I am looking at you and I'm telling you you can. Don't you trust my assessment at all? Do you think I'm a fool? So, well, he intimidated me into trying. I tried... he helped me by explaining a few details... like the comfortable position of the toes -- no curling -- and the swinging of the leg that goes under the other one all the way to the thigh, which is, surprisingly, easier than putting it closer to the knee -- lo and behold... I did it right on the spot. And as soon as I did, a flood of joy overcame me. So that's how I learned. To learn to hold it for prolonged periods of time without the physical sensations flooding out your meditative focus is another matter -- and, like everything else, a matter of practice. At first, I decided to keep it for a minute and add fifteen seconds every day. Anyone can do fifteen seconds of anything, however uncomfortable, right? Wrong. At first it hurt like a bastard. But at the end of the year, I could do an hour, nothing to it. Practice, practice, practice...

I've been told by a trustworthy master that one's ability or inability to assume the full lotus position is karmically determined, and that one's inability to sit in full lotus indicates a karmic load heavier than otherwise. If someone can't do it and keeps practicing to make oneself able to do it, the pain and endurance, the dedication and courage, dissipate adverse karma in direct proportion to the amount of pain, endurance, dedication and courage invested into mastering the pose. Of course for a Westerner all standard disclaimers apply -- don't push yourself harder than safe, do it gradually, practice stretches and, ideally, try to do it under supervision... I remember a horror story related by a friend of mine, a yoga teacher, who had to deliver one of her students to the emergency room in the full lotus position -- he got stuck there solid, cramped, couldn't un-lotus his legs without medical intervention. As for spiritual benefits of other kinds of meditation, I believe they are there for someone who is able to sit in full lotus even if he or she isn't sitting at the moment and is doing it differently. For someone who is unable to assume this posture, however, I don't believe it's anything but a waste of time to practice other kinds of meditation until and unless this one is mastered. (Don't throw anything too heavy, please).

That's because they wrote about what they were interacting with, and we write about what we are interacting with. I wouldn't attempt to write a stylistically Chinese-identical haiku in English in any event because it's absolutely impossible -- a haiku is a visual image first and foremost, its calligraphy is part of its overall artistic design. It is really an exquisite multimedia art form, and it is impossible to replicate in any Romano-Germanic or Slavic or Finno-Ugric, etc., language. Written Chinese was being developed as, among other things, a form of art for millennia. Written English is anything but. (I'm aware of only one American poet who attempted to draw pictures by shaping the lines of his poems into an image -- George Starbuck. He's an excellent and complex and therefore nearly universally unknown poet -- I believe by far the best American poet of the 20th century -- but still this attempt of his at doing art with the written English text is laughable.) Emperor Kangxi, when the Jesuit missionaries showed him the holy bible for the first time, couldn't believe it's their sacred book. "The lines look as though they were left by a bunch of cockroaches scurrying across a dusty table," he said. He meant no disrespect, in fact he opened China to Christian missionaries for the first time in history -- he was just commenting on the visual impact of the pages.

Good luck! I'll just go with the five syllables of your last pre-quitting entry. How long does this long gracious neck have to carry my short awkward thoughts?

I am new again, said the spider to the fly, I'm hungry no more.

Vigorous slapping after a taiji practice, bare hands. Everywhere you can reach -- grab one arm at the elbow, swing it over the opposite shoulder, totally relaxed, and use it as a slapper on the back, neck, and shoulders. Legs, bottom to top, with both hands simultaneously. Ears with fingertips. Kidneys with loose fists, in upward spirals. I use tools sometimes but not for slapping -- for guasha treatments. One jade, one water buffalo horn. The jade tool is for physical impact and the horn, for emotional/spiritual. I mostly use the jade one. A guasha treatment is quite painless but in any area with any hidden problem it will leave bruises that look horrible for a couple of days (without hurting one bit), due to the special technique of application that causes any trapped intracellular fluid to get pulled from deeper layers of the tissues to the surface and get promptly processed and removed. If anything hurts -- or used to ten years ago! --or is tight, blocked, etc., a bruise will appear there, while nothing happens in the problem-free areas. I've used it on other people too and had to ask for a written disclaimer in advance because in some cases this painless and relatively gentle procedure, with force of application comparable to ordinary massage, can leave one looking like a victim of major violence. LOL! Why don't you give this slapping to the dog first, to make him understand?

Making my way home or making the Way my home-- who could oppose that?..

sorry... she told me not to tell. My apologies.

del

What is hidden still is the marrow of the bones, the innermost yin.

I've read a book by an expert on entheogens who asserts that the wafer and wine they offer at a Catholic service as the body of Christ used to be (before the church hijacked and disemboweled the ritual and removed its true essence that was there in all prior history of humanity everywhere) the real thing -- concoctions of entheogenic plants! Talk about beliefs... You take a cracker and are asked to believe you're taking something sacred. Now if you get ayahuaska (e.g.) instead, from a shaman who's into magic head to toe and doesn't have to ask anyone to "believe" in it, you're dropped to the bottom of its reality like a stone regardless of what you believe or don't believe. Ted Kaptchuk in "The Healing Arts" spells out the "ingredients" of a classic magical ritual and finds every single one of them in the actions of, e.g., modern surgeons. The prerequisites for a bona fide magical intervention are, with little variation in the space and time of human history, the following: the performer of such ritual must be a "professional" belonging to a group that excludes all "non-professionals" from practicing what he practices; he uses special language incomprehensible to the non-initiated; he sacrifices parts of live flesh, blood, etc. (think lab work) to an oracle, spirit, or deity that will announce its instructions once the sacrifice has been performed; again, its pronouncements are not supposed to be understood by the uninitiated; he uses symbolic images of the person under ritual (think MRI or CAT scans) and interprets them the way only he is supposed to know; he uses animal sacrifice to facilitate his work (think animal studies); he uses animal helpers, both spirit helpers and actual manipulations of animal substances (think Premarin -- 'pregnant mare urine' -- or the pregnancy tests utilizing a rabbit's urine -- or all of microbiology); he wears special attire for the ritual that marks him as a member of a special select group, a costume lay people are not supposed to wear; it is supposed to signify his 'purity' (think sterility); he often uses a mask and hides his face while performing the ritual; he uses poisons, mind-altering, unconsciousness-inducing, numbing, or paralyzing substances on the person under spell; he uses the services of apprentices and helpers for the less significant parts of the ritual; he claims to hold the keys to the secrets of life and death; his actions are supposed to decide between them and command them; he won't perform his services for free; he will destroy anyone who tries to do what he's doing without having been initiated; and so on, the list can go on and on... and no surgeon will ever perform his work without the full benefit of the full magical ritual. Because, among other things, without the whole magical ritual he is helpless, he can't do it any other way!

ROFL!