Taomeow

Thanks! Of course I was an empress of China in a past life, no question, but the original idea behind the name was to encourage discussions of taoism specifically by people who do more with taoism than "discuss." Sorry for a poor introduction... the guy I meant is named Gavin. I'll ask him if he might join the thread here... hopefully either way I'll see some interesting expositions of hermetics.

Too bad you didn't get it from the library... maybe it's not the right time? My own copy of Wilhelm/Baynes came to me from the library but mysteriously. I borrowed it. I then called to renew it. The library said, we have no record of you having this book. You don't have it, so you can't renew it. OK, I said, I have it, and I am willing to return it, but not right now, I do want to keep it a bit longer, can you put it on my record and renew it? No can do, they said. Records are records, ours say you don't have it, it means you don't have it, there's no way around it, who do we trust, you or our new and improved computerized system? Have a good day. OK, I said to myself, I'll ask the book. I threw the coins. I Ching, should I return you to the library? Yes, she said, return. I threw the coins again: When? In ten years, she said. Well... ...I'm gonna. The map in this case IS the territory. This transpires (for me it did, at least) when you study ganying, the main engine of tao. The closest Western idea to ganying of taoist sciences is that of a fractal/holgraphic universe, but where we have an "idea" to toy with, "they" have a system of equasions whose sum is reality itself -- not an "image" of reality, not a "symbol" (the way our equasions are symbolic) but reality built into images, inseparable from them, non-symbolic. The I Ching shows you a picture that is not a picture... it just shows you one side to look from, a flat 2D side of a multidimentional nD reality behind it. "In the heaven of Indra, there is a string of pearls, so arranged that each one of them reflects each and every other one of them." The I Ching is this string of pearls, and there's exactly 64 of them. Tao is the thread that connects them... in a loop... Have you ever seen the original I Ching, the Circular one?..

Michael, cool, look at the Ta Chuan, and then in case you develop a taste for its simple but fun math, take it to the modern territory and check out what Donald Yan, Ph.D., Professor of Computational Chemistry at Cornell U, has figured out about it in his "DNA and the I Ching." (Here's a taste of the cake: presented as a sequence of codons, which is one way to arrange the "digrams" of the hexagrams flowing naturally from the fact that both the I Ching and the genetic code use binary mathematics, chapter 12, Standstill, corresponds in every detail to a genetic "stop dividing" message to a live cell encoded in your very own DNA. How's that for "your own intuition?" You didn't perchance encode your own DNA "intuitively," did you? Well, neither did I! ) Wayfarer, I agree with most of your take except that divinational function of the I Ching is "secondary." Nope. It is primary. All of taoism is a stochastic science and its crucial concept is "luck." When Einstein said that "God doesn't play dice," he made as big a mistake as did Descartes when he announced his dualistic manifesto, "Cogito ergo sum." The science of the six-thousand-years-older-than-ours civilization of Southeast Asia ain't no poor misguided superstitious relative to our "bigger better Western Science." When Francis Bacon said (and he did) that all of our Western civilization owes its very existence to discoveries made in ancient China, he knew what he was talking about. Taoist sciences ain't no bunch of silly superstitions ISO a "bigger-better-WHITER" explanation, and not an "inferior" way to approach reality. They are different from our approach (that of ascribing to reality itself as much action as we can think up in our human heads, and no more -- and most of what our human heads are capable of thinking up based on our daily experience with reality fits in a TV guide) -- they are different in that they work by emulating, in the greatest possible detail, the way reality itself works -- and reality plays dice all the time, one has to be "kicked in the third eye" (thanks for the cool quote, Wayfarer) very hard, as we all are, to fail to notice. What are the odds you will guess correctly whether I'm drinking tea or coffee right now? Depends on who you know. One thing to keep in mind when consulting the I Ching. It won't always bother answering the question you've asked, but it will ALWAYS answer the question of the moment, the real question you SHOULD have asked. And this one is the only part that depends on your intuition, insights into your own consciousness, and so on. If you have these pinned down, you will ask THE question at THE moment. If you don't, you will ask something esle, something off the top of your head, off the top of your consciousness if/when its deeper parts are hidden from you. But the I Ching will still answer the question from those deeper parts -- not just of your consciousness but of reality itself. And it IS infallible, as infallible as any probabilistic method can possibly be. If it appears it isn't, it means you didn't pinpoint the real question when asking. Here's an example from my experience: A young guy, a rock musician, was in a band that was just beginning to get its first serious gigs and becoming visible, and they decided they needed to change the name of the band, because the name they had at the time was from way back in high school and rather unimaginative. I said, what if changing the name interferes with your artistic luck? Ask the I Ching, he suggested, knowing I do that. So I did. The question I asked was, "should such-and-such band change its name?" The line I got in response read, "although there is illness, one doesn't die." I didn't get it, and tried again. The line I got was, "for three years, one won't come out of the house." The boy shrugged, I shrugged, well, perhaps the I Ching is not infallible after all, this is gibberish. A month later, a member of the band was diagnosed with cancer. The band fell apart. The battle with illness was life-and-death, took three years, and was successful.

I soooo disagree. The I Ching (together with its more concise sources, Hetu and Luoshu) is ALL of taoism -- not "some" of it but the bees' knees of it, the very core -- the rest is fringes, icing on the cake (and often way too cloying at that... too many cooks have thrown their sugar and honey and, lately, corn syrup and Aspartame on top of it... The cake itself is, however, perfect. To get a taste of real taoism, and of the truth that gave birth to it, one has to scrape off the mountain of icing -- by the way, all those ideas about how we are smarter than King Wen because we know about Rorschach and he didn't are part of that deceptively sweet confectioner's powder everything we've been fed since childhood has been sprinkled with -- yeah, shake it off, and try the cake... I kid you not.) Have you tried reading the Ta Chuan (The Great Treatise On The Changes)? I think it can help a modern person firmly indoctrinated into despising divination to get a glimpse of how and why the I Ching divination is every bit as scientific as quantum mechanics, genetics, and other stochastic (probabilistic) sciences of today. It has about as much relevance to one's psychology, incidentally, as the latter. I.e. "some," inevitably, but that's really not where it's at... To me (the daughter of a physicist and an engineer, a lineage of five Ph.D.s and six generations of atheists, who was taught to read, at age three, from a book titled Principles of Thermodynamics), the I Ching is the single most scientific book ever written on earth... and the only way to use it is the way it was intended to be used by its authors: for divination. Of course I wouldn't ask her about "the end of the world" or some such. I have a relationship with this book, that of a teacher-disciple, and she takes me seriously enough after a few years of building and nurturing this relationship on my part that she doesn't let me ask trivial, frivolous, superfluous, or silly questions. If I try, she snaps at me. If I persist, I get "I told you once, I told you twice, how many times do you want to hear it -- don't ask this stupid question again, I mean it!"

Hi the Grand One, at our (my and SJ's) Empirical Taoism forum we have a very knowledgeable member who's a member of the Hermetic society -- you're welcome to come pick his brain! http://skymountain.net/forum

For me it used to be a planned activity... oops... planned inactivity. I went through periods when I stillness-meditated every day. The result was not good. I thought for a couple of years I had become oh so peaceful, oh so wise... silly me. Eventually, through this practice (coupled with ideologically motivated denial of my own deeper feelings -- way deeper than the deepest meditation went), I accumulated too much yin and it generated false/surface yang and I became very... how shall I put it... spacey, the way quite a few new agers/hippies/potheads are (I was none of these), then restless, then... then I realized I'm far away from home, quit meditation for a few years altogether, dealt with problems from the past that had to be confronted rather than "forgotten," repaired most holes in my memory, restored my natural balance of natural feelings, and THEN resumed meditation. Only now it's something that "chooses me" instead of me "choosing to meditate" -- "it" tells me "when" and "for how long." So now it's whenever it tells me -- sometimes it's every day, and sometimes it's not even every year. But when it tells me it's time, I trust it and obey it. The only stillness meditations I "count" though are the ones where it's physically difficult for the body to remain still. (I have no problem stilling my mind -- maybe because I don't see it as a big deal, much less as the holy grail of meditation. ) Another quirk of mine: transmissions have to be personal, I can't possibly have an "online guru" or a book guru. "Like a candle lit from a candle" (Talmud), for me transmission of any teaching has to start with physical touch. (Well, I'm kinesthetic to the max in the NLP system -- not auditory, not visual...)

Chinese astrology's take: 40% of reality is destiny, written in the stars, can't be changed; another 40% is shaped by personal actions and choices (not thoughts); the remaining 20% is left to pure chance. Marcus Aurelius's take: "the body is flowing waters, the mind is dreams and vapors." My personal take: most people's thoughts shape their unreality.

Um... there's jing foods that aren't of animal origin, but if you use Deng Ming Dao as a source (which I would encourage, the guy knows his taoism way better than most "modern popularizers,") you will find he shuns "chronic" vegetarianism. Very few people in China have ever been vegetarians, and far as taoism is concerned, most sects will practice vegetarian eating periodically towards a specific goal, but none incorporate it "for everybody for all purposes." E.g., a Mao-shan sorceress will keep a vegetarian diet for a week before writing a talisman. Vegetarianism might be adhered to on a few specific days of the year; also four or five times during the year's transitional phases; also to "kill" strong sexuality when/if it interferes with other activities, or if you're a monk who's taken the vow of celibacy; also in very advanced age, late eighties on; also if/when a doctor prescribes it as a temporary targeted intervention for a particular disorder. By the way, these traditional jing-building foods are delicious, but very hard to find in organic shape and form (if it's factory-farmed, like any other meat obtained this way it is quite harmful of course, not because it's an animal product but because it's a product of human insanity). I don't know what happened in this country with this whole "yuck" idea sold to the population regarding organ meats, but the first thing that comes to mind is that it's yet another bit of racism/colonialism in disguise, since all indigenous peoples without a single exception (and, of course, all Native Americans who lived here before the land was taken away from them) valued organ meats above all other kinds of meat and rightfully so -- that's where all the jing and qi action is. In Mexico, when I dined with a local family rather than in a touristy place, I was served a shen food too -- fried brains!

The knowledge is from Xuan Kong (space-time) feng shui (authentic, not the "wealth sector" and "career sector" and the rest of the bogus stuff that has been sold to the West as "feng shui"), and feng shui masters used the name as an inside joke of sorts, meaning it will kill the feng shui master, or at least his or her career, to even take out the luopan for a client on one of these days. Here's a translation I have among my feng shui files (or should I say piles... haven't finished the Full Moon--New Moon cleaning phase of the New Year yet): Grand Master Yang's Inauspicious Dates (also known as Feng Shui Masters Killing Days) Translation: These are the 13 days passed down by deity There will be losses if having activities All constructions If not burned down will meet with disaster Marriage will not be long lasting and will not be "till death doth us part" People come in and go out on these days Though toil but the expense will be more than income If buried on these days the descendents will beg for food If on the way to one's post on these days There will be a lot of worries and (...) be dismissed/discharged Hope those who know will widely pass on to the world For their descendents will be prosperous and their good deeds will be credited to the next world. These are inauspicious dates we should avoid for major activities.

Man, very perceptive again! Yes. Among other things, these days act as traps -- they lure you into undertaking stuff.

Astute perception, Ian! February 6th was one of the 13 "Master Killing Days" of the year, which are rather important to keep track of in authentic feng shui. I keep the list of all these next to a wall calendar so that I know when NOT to schedule anything important. The most important things not to do on one of these days are "big" and "new" ones with lasting consequences (i.e., don't get married, don't start a business, don't move to a new home, don't make investments, close deals, sign contracts, start construction, etc.). Small things can get slightly screwed up too -- you might get blisters if you wear a new pair of shoes, you might get into a delay from hell if you travel by air -- but that's not as important as knowing to avoid doing the "big and new" stuff. I might post a list of the Master Killing Days for 2007 when I have the time to calculate them or else ask someone knowledgeable. (If anyone already has it and can spare me the math and/or the leg work, please share!)

Thanks for all the input, guys, and, Craig, SJ, I will look into shaking too, been meaning to... but I feel that I specifically need something good and energizing that is done "to me" and "for me" rather than "more things I have to do" The past four years, I've been doing "a helluva lot" rather than "not enough." There was a serious illness in the family, and that's where much of my qi and most of my life's energy and all of its focus went, mending it. My acupuncturist kept telling me that I "need things for myself," shaking his head and asserting I'm "using up more than I have." So anything that generates qi without my having to dip into the (already running low) pool of zhi is welcome in my life right now. That's how I try to design my practices of the moment -- the I Ching way, "the easy and the simple." (Of course my definition of "easy and simple" is not the same as someone else's, but the Qi machine is definitely in this category for anyone -- except I would still use the dantien focus or some other meditation mode when using it. I do it when getting acupuncture too, and even when swimming, and even when loading the dishwasher )

Interesting question! Sincerity is not one of the virtues of tao, far as I've been able to discern. (One of my favorite sources, the Ta Chuan or Great Treatise on the Changes, does go into "virtues of tao" in some detail.) Looks like "spontaneous, sincere lying" is part of how things seem to work in nature. E.g., there's a whole huge class of biological phenomena known as mimicry, which is used by thousands of species in an attempt to fool other species into believing they are what they really aren't. In appearance and in behavior, they lie and lie -- an insect pretending it's a dry leaf, a pair of butterfly wings pretending they're the eyes of an own, an ears-flattening hissing cat pretending she's a snake, a virus that tricks a cell into believing it's part of its natural milieu by simulating the kind of chemical signals to which the cell wall that is supposed to stop the alien invader responds like to an open-sesame... there's literally thousands of examples of this "lying game" in nature. And besides mimicry, there's thousands more ways natural things fool other natural things. Psychomimetic substances in plants that the brain mistakes for its own neurohormones. All creatures who make a living by arranging traps for other creatures -- the spider being a familiar example. Are any of them being "sincere" or not?.. Looks like "sincerity" is a concern of "the human mind," not of "the mind of tao." Integrity, on the other hand, is what all these creatures and humans alike need to have in order to be exactly what they are, no more, no less (that's another shade of meaning of "de" -- "true to self"). This "exactly what they are" seems to include, all across the natural spectrum, the ability to be insincere on occasion. So it looks like there's only one kind of insincerity that's not compatible with integrity and with te: lying to oneself!.. A hissing cat who pretends she's a snake still knows in her heart she's a cat. A butterfly with wings painted to imitate a staring owl's eyes, who scares away a hungry swallow by pretending to be something that can swallow the swallow, still knows he's a butterfly (unlike Zhuangzi who seems to be unable to decide whether he's man or butterfly in an often-quoted fable that, to me, illustrates the confused state of man in general, not of Zhuangzi specifically). So it looks to me as though "fooling oneself" is the kind of insincerity that would clash with "integrity," while "fooling others" for a good cause is not off limits... or at least to tao it isn't.

There's an English word that contains the concept and implications of Te in its entirety: INTEGRITY. It's not something that "happens," you either "are" it or aren't, "have it" or don't, it's the way you are organized, or not. Sean's "sincerity" is close, but also closer to the surface. "Sincerity" is an attitude of the mind, which one can take or leave, have today, change tomorrow, display to some people, refuse to approach others with; while "integrity" is the organizational principle of the body-mind-spirit as a whole that is (or isn't) present at all times and is not contingent on the particular attitude of the moment. That's what te is -- the way you are when you are whole.

Oh, I just realized something, QiDr -- you probably mean electroacupuncture machines which you compared to needles? The machine I was talking about is the one described above by Ian, the one that moves your legs vigorously (and the whole body, sublty) from side to side in a specific fish-tail-like fashion. (The makers of the Sun Ancon machine assert other brands fail to create the correct pattern of "primal" movement, but whether they are telling the truth I don't know. The Japanese guy who invented the machine was inspired, predictably, by his goldfish.)

Speaking of which, what do you think about using acupuncture on oneself? The three Chinese acupuncturists whose treatments I used at different times all said "no, not good," the two non-Chinese ones whom I asked the same question said, "sure, I do it on myself whenever I need it." I don't do acupuncture on myself (although I know enough of it to be able to) because it "feels unnatural." So I was trying to compare the Qi machine to other self-treatments, not to treatments of self by others. Do you do acupuncture on yourself?

I have Cleary's "Taoist I Ching" (a bit of an oxymoron there, this title! ), which is a translation of Liu I-Ming's version, and Liu I-Ming was a Buddhist till his old wise age when he converted to taoism, so the fact that he was a Buddhist thinker first is all over his interpretations of taoist concepts -- is this the version you had in mind, or is there another book that's called "Buddhist I Ching?" If there is, I don't have it, sorry. If you mean Liu I-Ming's version, I'll be happy to summarize how it tackles Hexagram 31.

Interesting, we seem to have similar bookshelves, Yen Hui! I have Wong Kiew Kit's books too, and Wilhelm-Baynes is the version I prefer to the ten others I have, although currently I don't read the commentaries much (beyond those of the Duke of Zhou), contemplating the images instead... Funny how different people can look at the same sources and draw quite different conclusions. Have you noticed that Confucius is concerned with having the child obey the parent, while Laozi, with trying to convince the parent to let the child be?.. And how buddhism assumes that "attraction," aka "attachment," is bound to cause suffering -- a view taoism never had? in particular, in the quotes you posted about "attraction" and "attachment" between heaven and earth being a natural law? Of course it is possible to reconcile the differences by fragmenting one's own consciousness, but a whole, unbroken, or else successfully unified consciousness notices that you can only have it all three ways at once if neither one communicates with the other two at any given point. E.g., you can be a taoist and study and practice, among other things, the magnificent natural laws of attraction of opposites (which include laws of repulsion, by the way -- taoism actually started as the discovery of magnetic forces, which tangibly go both ways). Or you can be a buddhist and study all those magnificent ways to pretend these forces don't exist, i.e. learning to "rid yourself of attachments." Or you can be a Confucian and just make sure the peasants don't rebel against the landowners, the women take a submissive position towards men for all purposes everywhere in society, and the children obey the parents regardless of whether they are being loved or abused, nurtured or violated. But to be all three all at once, one needs to be fragmented and not whole. The non-fragmented whole can't be put together ouf of parts that simply don't fit together... or as a Chinese proverb goes, "you can't get far traveling the river in two boats simultaneously by placing one foot in each." Let alone in THREE boats... My humble, of course.

Thank you, Ian. Yes, that's the name of the author, but the book I had in mind is "Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism." She must have written another one since (or before) that one.

Yes, her ideas came from watching non-cooperating cows suffer a lot more before they die, and feeling what they felt. Since it was not in her power to eliminate factory farming, she did the thing that WAS in her power -- helped eliminate the additional and excessive suffering of the doomed animals. She couldn't kill the industry, but to kill the overkill, which is what occurred to her, didn't occur to "normal" people who designed the equipment that was in place before her modifications. She also designed equipment for herself to alleviate her own suffering (she was in pain most of the time for most of her life, and on all known painkillers and antidepressants, which didn't do much), a "squeeze tube" to apply even, gentle but firm pressure to the whole body. She made it for other autistic people too, and for some, it was the first and only thing that ever helped. Now something that didn't occur to her but it did to me -- I think this "squeeze tube" of hers is designed to emulate the natural sensations of natural birth, which is a kind of necessary normal developmental stimulation -- not "too much," not "too little" -- "just enough" to serve, as mother nature intended it to, as the first and most imporant pattern of signals for the whole system to switch gears smoothly from prenatal to postnatal existence. Many autistic people (and many less severely affected ones) miss out on this "just enough" pattern in modern birth, and a lot of signals get scrambled for life.

I started seeing pi as a landscape (to use a very inadequate word for the experience) after a period of intense qigong and Chinese astrology pracitces. Since I'm not autistic, I plan to put these things into words someday, but it is a monumentally difficult task to find words for experiences that defy left-brain step-by-step linear arrangements. I can draw some of the experience though... but I'm still looking for a way to draw it just so that it is "obvious" to a "normal" eye. (When I try, I feel a profound need to have a hundred arms and hands like the goddess Kali in order to simultaneously draw some things I SEE simultaneously, not "one after the other...") Parts of our consciousness have to be separated from other parts (e.g., sight from sound) in order for our whole system to be able to decide, once and for all, on a certain limited way to perceive reality (e.g., to be able to "taste" an apple instead of "hearing" it). This enables us to "function" properly as members of a certain specific species. Neither "taste" nor "sound" of an apple are absolutes, a bat "hears" it but can't "taste" it, a dog can "smell" it but not "color-code" it, and so on. What allows for such selective perceptions is "neural gates" and genetic "silencers" on certain potentially possible but "counterproductive" perceptions. In autism, these gates are damaged (by traumatic fetal development, traumatic birth, vaccinations in infancy -- or, very rarely, something else), things that were supposed to be well-defined and separated by "gates" and "silencers" never separate properly and keep interfering with each other. Selecting "what" to perceive and "how" to perceive becomes difficult or impossible. They are aware of more (sometimes infinitely more) going on inside themselves than it is possible to integrate -- all at once. They feel things too strongly (that's why a loud sound is a torturous pain to many of them), out of sync with each other (e.g., the sound the left ear perceives comes first, and the input from the right one is delayed, so human speech can get garbled by interference and turn into meaningless and maddening noise... In some autistics, the thing that will make them able to communicate is as simple as to whisper quietly in ONE ear so there's no interference from the other.) To an outside observer (most of the time a dumb one), they appear "dumb," while the real problem is, they are too indiscriminately and chaotically brilliant -- blinded by the light, too much light shining on everything too strongly and with too few rest-giving shadows. It's a rather horrible way to be, in fact, this inborn enlightenment... There's another autistic who managed to "build the bridge," I read her book quite a while ago. She actually became a multimillionaire designing industrial agricultural equipment that was found to be the best in the world -- in her book she explains in detail how she came up with her designs because she "understands the cows" and can feel "exactly the way the cow feels." The book was called "Thinking In Pictures" I seem to recall. A very elucidating "insider's" view into the world of an autistic.

Good stuff, Yen Hui, thank you. I've learned a few things from Eva Wong too, and keep her Feng Shui guide on "the" shelf reserved for improtant books (the first one on that shelf is the I Ching, of course! ) I wonder though how many of those who were exposed to Buddhism in its "gerenic" form (as most people in the West were) are aware of the "secret Buddhist practices for cultivating the body?" I know that in Tibet, in the Dzogchen tradition (Buddhism-closest-to-taoism tradition, just like Complete Reality is Taoism-closest-to-buddhism), they kept those practices secret for hundreds of years... I saw a documentary, "The yogis of Tibet," where one of the monks agreed to give a demo... Boy oh boy. All those "quietly just sitting" Buddhists don't know what they're missing! It was like taoist "animal" practices but perhaps even more ancient, the monk wasn't emulating "higher" animals -- he was jumping like a flea, expanding and contracting like an amoeba, even growing and propagating like a virus! -- and all of it with the kind of fajin (explosive energy releases) usually associated with martial arts rather than meditation... but he WAS meditating like that! Which shows he didn't mistake "mind" for the stuff in one's head... he knew that "body" is not "non-mind" and mind is not "non-body." I wish people who think that Buddhism is about "transcending" the body saw that bit...

Welcome, Yen Hui! What is it that attracts you specifically to the Complete Reality School's teachings and (or) practices? I find it quite compelling too, and tried to learn as much about it as I could in the first years of my taoist endeavours, but a bit later, I decided that the fairly strong Buddhist influences on its development are not quite "my" way, and shifted more towards the earliest taoist and proto-taoist (bordering on shamanic) ways. Of course these aren't forgotten by CRS either, but I found out eventually that it's only "taoism proper" that gets a resonant "yes, this is it!" from all my shens, whereas whenever any of them go, "really? Oh... OK," the part to which they respond with this detached indifference transpires as a later/Buddhist acquisition. What about you? Are you looking for "taoism proper in taoism" or are you enjoying the blend?

Thanks, SJ, yeah, let me see what you're up to... You think the blissful energy before sleep is the premier method? Qi machine I had to specifically NOT use right before bedtime because blissful energy it did generate but sleep it busted. Also, I would put a CD of Chinese classical music on (to cover up for the sound the machine's mechanical parts make which, though not terribly loud or annoying by itself, is absolutely out of sync with the wave frequency the machine generates -- the qi waves in the feet are about twice as fast as that clicking sound while the ones going up the legs to the body, about three times slower!) -- where was I? -- oh, and Chinese music always amplifies whatever state I'm in -- I'd say it has the value of 9 for me (feng-shui-wise speaking), so if I'm sleepy to begin with, one peep of the pipa or the bamboo flute will knock me out, but if I'm over-energized, the same one peep will turn into a whole CD and then another one and l'd be listening to them with a mixed feeling... how's blissfully pissed for a feeling?

Michael, There's no mats in taiji... other than that, I think what you said is quite true. My taiji teacher has no time to socialize though. He will invite students to his home a couple times a year to celebrate this or that, but the rest of the time, he's either working (most of the time) or practicing or being a father to his kids and a cook to his scientist wife and a host to his Chinese-only speaking visitors. I get a big kick out of the fact that he was so poor in maoist China he couldn't afford a bicycle, and now he has a couple millions' worth beautiful home and drives a luxury car and horseback rides for fun and plays golf, that his life is that of an affluent American now and yet he's one of the very few real taoists I've been lucky to meet. This "going with the flow" is something he doesn't have to talk about -- he IS the flow. He works so hard and finds it so easy! I've never seen him in any other state than that of an abundance of healthy creative energy, nothing ever ails him, he doesn't have any "moods," though his feelings are strong, fast, and obvious -- he's an open book, he's got nothing to hide. I admire him greatly, and besides taiji, I'm learning this "being the flow instead of going with the flow" from him, being the change, being the happening, not the "who things happen to." Other than that, the secret of practice is practice... just doing it enough times for enough lengths of time every time. I'm not great at that, but I'm pretty sure that's where it's at. Of course one has to have done some homework in choosing the "right" practice (there's so much crap out there...)... but once that's taken care of, the biggest secret is, do the leg work... and the heart work will follow.