Taomeow

Great responses, bums! Thanks. To tackle the last one first: (oops... just saw it's not the last one anymore... great, please keep them coming! -- so, OK, now what I wrote below pertains to the next to last one): Craig, it may be a case of "when a student is ready" in terms of whether one encounters authentic teachers or not, and if yes, "when." I can relate to your experiences, down to a taekwondo background (a modest one but a very useful one in its own time), and the reason today I value lineage, tradition, authenticity above all else is perhaps I've grown enough, in whatever sense, to understand their value... I didn't always! I used to be, like most modern people, into the modern values of "creativity," "expressing one's unique individuality," "originality," things new, things unheard-of, things trendy, things cutting-edge... Ah how laughable I find them today. But an earlier me wouldn't understand the joke. And in any event the joke is on me... What am I, personally, doing at an internet fourm, any internet forum? I have a very good answer but I don't think it will be a popular one. But since you ask... thanks for asking... OK, here goes. I "contract" it the way one contracts a "pernicious influence" in TCM. My primary Wuxing phase is Wood. The internet is of the Fire phase. Wood catches on Fire easily. I don't have enough Water in my chart to avoid it. Fire is not good for me. It's not good for me but it is attracted to me and I, to it, it's a raw energy phenomenon, not even spiritual, just basic, elemental, almost as involuntary as digestion or respiration and, in a sense, even more basic. Wood catches on Fire, that's the nature of its phase, so if there's plenty of Fire in the environment, it will "contract" some, no way around it. Wood surrounded by Fire has to sacrifice a branch here, a branch there, she has no choice. So for me, it is very important to make sure my whole body doesn't get involved in the Fire. The internet is where I throw dry branches, so to speak. A sacrificial pyre... that lets me salvage the bigger, greener branches, the trunk... because I have at least some control over what to let Fire consume when I turn my computer on, and what not to feed it. But this control is limited, and I know my limitations full well. Against the original Wuxing make-up, I have any control at all over exactly 40% of what's going to happen to me, here or anywhere else. So my task is to use it wisely... Working on it.

make it a resonating string why don't we? I am a radical environmentalist, by far farther to the left, right, up, down, east, west, north, south than any Greens -- environmentally I'm a follower of Derrick Jensen's ideas, know him? If you don't may I recommend a book -- he's written several, I've read two, 'tis enough -- the second one that is fresh in my memory is titled Endgame. Moderation ends here... and good riddance too, far as I'm concerned. I don't buy moderate murder of the planet, animals, plants, peoples, feelings, senses, life. I am radically opposed to civilization. ANY civilization. I do have a computer desk under which I presently duck though -- in case stuff people start throwing at me when I say that (as they always do) gets too heavy. Other than that... I'm 5'8" and 135 lb, and have always been since I stopped growing, many moons ago, and will always be if I don't slack at the job of being me. Which I occasionally do, but rectify myself as soon as I catch myself doing it. I don't want to be a random collection of knee-jerk responses to what the world chooses or chances to do to me, I want to put myself together according to my very own specs. I'm an immigrant, have worn many hats, married and had kids early (2 at 21), and never look or behave as wild as I always feel. I feel prehistoric... I don't belong anywhere, but seldom fail to fit in anywhere I choose to. Nostalgia is my modus operandi, but what I miss is not a place but a time, and not a time in this-here life but a time beyond time, or at the very least some 150,000 years ago. I feel it in my blood and miss it every second of every day. I neither look nor act unhappy and much of the time don't feel unhappy either, but my internet incarnations often come across as grossly dissatisfied. This is the tip of the iceberg of me which I hope will sink the Titanic of this ridiculous and cruel world we call "modern" should they ever collide head on. Oh, and I love cats...

and I don't, but that's because I'm the one who was misread, not you, Cat and Michael! Spectrum, with all due respect... I didn't make a peep about taoism's stand on the issue of right or wrong, I said taoism has no prohibitive counterpart of the specific Buddhist and Christian thou shalt/shalt not's I mentioned, and I stand by this assertion. If you know of an authentic (sic) taoist text that is either prescriptive or prohibitive in the same way, do enlighten. The ones I am familiar with are open to interpretation. (Especially the oldest, wisest, and most important one in my book -- the I Ching.) I said, further, that "anything can be used for anything by a practicing taoist." Key word "practicing," and if if this opinion of mine strikes you as "uninformed" I surely object, it is quite well informed, just not shared by you nor elaborated on by me. Well, let me elaborate a bit... hmm, let's take a simple example: in taiji I'm told "use qi, not li," and further, "use yi, not qi." Is it a prohibitive or a prescriptive statement? A commandment? Something that has something to do with "right and wrong" in the moral sense? Nope, it is the outcome of a thorough and competent (on the original taoist masters' part) inquiry into what works, what works why, what works how, what doesn't work, and what works better than what else. Only being informed via practice breathes sense into "taoist" statements, of which mine was one -- oh, trust me, blatantly so. Anything can be used for anything by a practicing taoist. Ah but a practicing taoist will know what to use and what not to use, and when, and how, and why. She doesn't need to be admonished to lead a responsible, aware, etc., life, she will find out soon enough, or eventually, via her practices, that there's a "tao-aligned" and a "tao-misaligned" way to do things (or to not do things, as the case may be). Still there's no prhibitions on my using li if my qi is not up to speed yet, or my using qi if my yi is still weak, or anything at all for anything at all. It's just that it's going to be feckless when up against somenone else's practice that is better tao-aligned, or my own for that matter, down the road. I can cultivate extreme yin, e.g., if I so choose, and use it in my martial practice, or in healing, or in pursuit of grounding and stability, or for anything else I choose to use it for. I can abandon it and cultivate extreme yang, by the same token, if I choose to blow the status quo all to hell. I can, furthermore, explore both extremes and choose balance -- I can, while at it, even believe what I currently believe (to wit, that anyone who doesn't know the extremes can't find balance because where would he or she look for it without knowing what it is exactly that is being balanced and where exactly the application of the balancing weight should fall, or whence should it be removed?..) And so on... That's what I meant, roughly. This may constitute an opinion different from yours, but "uninformed..." ...nah, not really.

for the Chinese New year... Clean the house to utter impeccability!!! This is the single most important thing to do. Any dirt carried over to the New year from the old one will transfer old troubles right over and you'll get "more of the same" instead of anything new. Don't clean New Year's Day though! Especially don't sweep or you will sweep all the new luck right out. As for the rest, it's way too complicated for a Westerner to replicate. You have to have grown up with the tradition, and have a mother, grandmother, aunt, sister well versed in the art of cooking those lucky foods and taking care of all the details. The noodles have to be extra long, for long life. The black fungus... nah, I won't even try to cook anything out of that, I'm sure I'll mess it up. But none of it is as important as the ideal order and perfect sanitation of the environment in which you will usher in the new year, and also good company and a joyous, happy ambiance. As for the Western New Year (which has no energetic consequences, having been chosen arbitrarily and not being aligned with the new solar year, so it's not real, really), mine is Chinese flavored too these days because my taiji teacher invites all his students for a celebration at his home. It is a traditional American potluck with just one little Chinese twist: no one is allowed to wear their street shoes inside the house...

With Beginning, __________ created God. -- Zohar (a kabbalistic text quoting the Bible in Aramaic exactly and literally. The original "__________" is also translated as "it" or "nothingness.")

Chinese calendar used the Celestial Stem--Earthly Branch system. There are 10 Stems and 12 Branches. Stems are named by the Yin-Yang and Wuxing, or Five Phases (Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth). The Stem sequence order is: Yang Wood, Yin Wood, Yang Fire, Yin Fire, Yang Earth, Yin Earth, Yang Metal, Yin Metal, Yang Water and Yin Water. Branches use the animal names. Stem and Branch are used together to form a cycle of 60 which begins with Yang Wood Rat and ends with Yin Water Pig. From 1924 to 1983 is a complete 60-year cycle. Year 2007 is Yin Fire Pig, also called Red Pig year. Since it's yin, it's not a "boar," more like a sow. Water and Wood, in this case, are not of the Celestial Stem but of the Earthly Branch, an attribute of Pig. So it's a Fire Pig with Water and Wood in it -- picture an earthly wood-water creature roasting on celestial fire, that's the qi of the year. It can get complicated, but never irrational, the purpose of the system is to track down assorted types/phases of qi present in the environment at any given point -- hour, day, month, year, 20-year cycle, 60 year cycle, 120,000 year cycle... and so on. I am crazy about Chinese astrology, it means everything it says it means and then some...

You mean it's not "supposed" to be used for personal goals? Anything can be used for anything by a practicing taoist. Buddhists have their accounting of the eightfold right this and right that, Christians have their ten commandments (not that they bother following them but at least all ten are on the books), but taoists (except for the sects heavily inluenced by Buddhism, Confucianism, Maoism, or New Age ) don't really have a prohibitive counterpart. Which may have something to do with their respect for "the mind of tao" whose prohibitions in general have little in common with those concocted by "the human mind" and in particular do not extend to moderately/naturally selfish behaviors. Having personal goals is normal. Every animal en route to a watering hole knows that. The classic wish-giving intend-my-goal taoist tool is the North Pole Star meditation on a desire. It is excruciatingly difficult, but other than that, perfectly kosher.

andonitxo, thanks for your perspective! Your post has been moved to a new thread in the Discussion section, I'll reply there.

Kidding aside, Treena, I believe that's what a lot of shamanic work is all about, biophysically speaking. We have three billion years' worth of silent genes accumulation storing all the information of all the mind-blowing living skills and tricks of all the creatures great and small that went before... ...and "before" is "now" if one knows how.

Well, I live in CA and most people don't seem to use their left brain OR their right one all that much... perhaps they get by on the miao tao, the mysterious border between the two. Then again, I live in the only CA city that votes Republican, so the left-right cognitive split here must be even worse than elsewhere.

Could be any of these in the order of decreasing probability: 1. Magnesium deficiency. 2. B group vitamins deficiency. 3. A slightly inflamed nerve (e.g., as a result of a dentist's intervention, or lack thereof). 4. With your taoist practices you have partially unblocked a gene that makes the ears of animals of other species capable of wiggling. 5. The government has implanted an eavesdropping device in your cochlea. 6. The higher-vibrational-plane beings are trying to commnicate with you by whispering vibrating messages in your ear. 7. The world of manifest phenomena is a dualistic illusion. In reality, there is no separation, and therefore there is no ear.

How very true. I can't have a perfectly still mind unless my body is perfectly still. But they tell me thirty years down the road I will be able to do calligraphy with a perfectly still mind. If I'm a fast learner that is.

Hi, fellow feline, and thanks for the welcome! Yes, I use the stuff, I'm a card-carrying pragmatist (very indifferent to "armchair philosophy"). What I do with it, and what for?... I pursue fulfillment in the Triple Realm. In the Lower Realm, I seek health, happiness, wholeness, and competence so I can help others achieve same (unless they don't want me to of course). In the Middle Realm, I seek wisdom, peace, and duration. In the Higher Realm, I seek to do nothing and accomplish everything, the way tao does. In all three, I aspire to emulate tao. All these I believe are worth a shot at via authentic taoist cultivation practices. So I do taiji and qigong to keep my body and mind in good repair and to be able to prevent other bodies and minds from doing damage to them; mix herbal formulas (I haven't seen a Western doctor in ten years) and meditate on the energies of plants, animals, and natural phenomena; read fortunes, calculate auspicious and inauspicious developments, move furniture (yes, this too... feng shui!), consult the I Ching when trying to make a decision, and... well, all that jazz and more.

Hi Wisard, 'tis true, some talismans are like keys... others are like locks, and still others, like a charge of dynamite to tear down the locked doors! I don't use the word "vibration" because new agers have given it such a bad vibe! I prefer to call it ganying. The implications of thinking of resonating phenomena as ganying rather than vibrations are that things that do NOT vibrate -- e.g., phenomena of stillness -- still fall under the spell of resonating similarities with other things that are still, i.e. are ruled by ganying whether they vibrate or not. Of course I'm nowhere near proficient enough to write a talisman of stillness.

Good luck with that! 'tis going to be the year of the Red Pig, beginning Feb 4th -- 18th, with Fire, Water, Wood energies in a beautiful if precarious balance, auspicious (via a precarious chance) for those whose lucky phases are any of these, which is rare, because Water and Fire seldom benefit the same year, but here it comes! It is going to be the first year of the new larger, 20-year cycle, that of Water permeating all of its background, after an equally long stretch of the Metal backdrop which it is a miracle I survived. Water, I've been waiting for you all my life. With Fire having no chance to blaze out of control because Water will be taking care of it, exotic Wood that doesn't mind Water that this year will be HOT has a chance to thrive. Earth and Metal people, be careful... you were lucky this far, and now it's our turn. The compass will turn, and turn again...

The move is derived from hexagram 60 of the I Ching. The Jade girl working at the shuttles is a serving maid to the taoist immortals. She moves the wooden shuttle with smooth body turns lika a water wheel. There are four turns corresponding to the number of seasons in the year, and to the four directions around the central axis represented by the mystical animals: South-Red Phoenix-Fire; East-Green Dragon-Wood; West-White Tiger-Metal; North-Black Turtle-Water. The Earth, Yellow Snake, corresponding to "self," is in the center. The lady at the shuttle is shuttling the world.

Hi Michael, thanks, I'm glad to be here too! Talismanic sorcery is an ancient art of communication with hidden energies of the world, sometimes with fairly straightforward types of qi (like that of wind, fire, etc.) and sometimes with more ornate ones (ghosts, spirits and demons) through written signs, symbols and messages charged with particular types of energy that has certain affinity, correspondence, control, attraction, or repulsion vis a vis the energy of the entity one seeks to communicate with. These energies and entities can be sought for help or hindrance, invited or expelled, used in healing, in cursing, or in protection. The better known (albeit secretive) ancient taoist sect that practices talismanic sorcery to this day is Mao-shan magical (not to be confused with Mao-shan mystical), however my (very humble) knowledge comes from an obscure proto-taoist lineage from Altai, and, yes, is not for in-depth discussion, although I don't mind a surface touch if anyone is interested. The physical basis for talismanic sorcery is calligraphy, and the energetic basis for calligraphy is all manner of energy cultivation practices, and the spiritual basis for energy cultivation practices is shamanic in its origins. So talismanic sorcery is a "refined" form of shamanic work with a Chinese/taoist twist, is all it is. Simple!

There's no raw foodist Chinese to my knowledge, or Indians, or Native Americans, or any indigenous peoples. Now rats is a different matter... We started cooking our food because of a climate change that made much of the stuff we evolved eating raw unavailable. We nearly lost the quest for survival to rodents with whom primates have historically competed for foodstuffs for at least 2.6 million years (in fact, over a hundred species of primates did lose it after the climate change that made this competition more fierce, and went extinct). Our very own species figured out an alternative way to make up for lost foods by releasing additional energy (i.e. bioavailability) from them with a blast of yang-fire. This happened so long ago that no homo sapiens anywhere on earth has eaten a raw diet in all of archeologically accounted-for history. They've found huge Native American fire pits that multiple tribes used to roast their meat for twenty-five thousand years in a row in the same locations, coming with the herds and going and coming back, generation after generation, and roasting and frying, and having no health complaints. Now rats, cats, bats -- these are different. For starters, they don't have opposable thumbs, so they didn't even try cooking. We did. And we got away with it. If we didn't, it would have been rats ruling the earth today, the way they did yesterday. This said, raw food diets do have a place in human nutrition, as a short term therapeutic intervention they can be quite useful. A raw food diet is catabolic, and anyone in need of weight loss, sped-up bowel transit, and a detox could benefit from a week or two twice to four times a year of a raw food diet. This has been used traditionally in European naturopathy, in TCM, and in Ayurveda, but none of these have ever viewed the raw food diet as a viable lifestyle diet, only as a short term medicinal intervention. It is funny how people confuse one with the other. A week or two of antibiotics can help with pneumonia, but one wouldn't think of taking them for life. I have seen many folks here in CA who did get too raw curious, the "true believers" who persevere with the experiment, and I'm not too crazy about what I saw. Some of the catabolic changes brought about by a long term use of the raw diet are permanent -- e.g., damage to the thyroid, which can suffer irreversible changes from the goitrogenic (thyroid-suppressing) effects of raw cruciferous vegetables raw foodists are so fond of; to the brain, which loses the myelating sheath off its neuronal dendrites in the absence of adequately bioavailable (i.e. cooked) animal fat and a bunch of coenzymes only found in cooked foods (that's why cognitive processes in chronic raw foodists are not quite up to speed, or to be precise, 10 times slower); or to the nerves, because B-12 is only present in foods humans either eat cooked or not at all. (And, no, supplements don't help, unless it's the injectable form, but what's so very natural and healthy about a diet that needs to be supplemented with injections? )

I incorporate, among other things, the dietary/herbal approach. The system I use more than most is wuxing/yin-yang. Example: If I want to strengthen the kidneys, I take into account the following facts when choosing foods and herbs that nourish and tonify them: their Phase is Water; they store jing; have affinity to the salty taste; are partial to "slow yin"; store zhi; are controlled by Metal (lungs,) depleted by Fire (heart), blocked by Earth (spleen), and provide nourishment for Wood (liver); generate bones, and open into the ears; store ontogenic and philogenic memory; and so on. Then I do the following: favor Water-based foods over dry foods; use jing-nourishing herbs, foods, and animals (ginseng, "slow yin" foods like congee, deer antler, sea horses); use salted, pickled, fermented foods like live sauerkraut, kimchee, miso, assorted brine-pickled homemade veggies; keep them warm at all times; don't use zhi in any practices; control them with pungent foods, avoid bitter foods, avoid sweet foods, and take the burden off them by nourisning their child organ (liver) with plenty of sour tasting foods; eat bone broths and protect the ears (keep them warm, and keep them open, i.e. listen, and keep them from working too hard, i.e. don't listen to anything too loud); make sure I don't repress new memories and restore, via assorted "know thyself" practices, any and all that were repressed in my early developmental history (repression taxes Kidneys more than anything else). This is more fun than I can begin to tell you.

A very prevalent category of people I've encountered is the third kind. People who believe they are enlightened until they stub their toe, whereupon they immediately flush their enlightenment down the toilet and revert to taking life seriously. And then there's the fourth category, people who only believe in enlightenment in the classical taoist sense (later borrowed by a popular Buddhist preacher who used this concept as a building block in the foundation of Zen) -- a leap across the abyss where you either land on the other side or not, either get enlightened or get screwed, and if you get enlightened it is instantaneous and permanent and you don't use the internet anymore. Life, in the meantime, as unenlightened as it may seem to anyone who can't see the light for whatever reasons, or to anyone who can for that matter, is only worth living when taken seriously. If it is not taken seriously, if it's a play, a game, a make-believe, you are no longer human, you may be pure oneness but pure oneness pays no bills and makes no babies and wipes not their tears when they cry, and is therefore not worth considering as a factor that can make or break the wholeness of a human life. Oh, and that stubbed toe -- it is either whole or broken, and it matters much more than whether the universe is whole -- yes, it is, universally speaking, but we are concerned with local developments for a damn good reason. Things that are whole are available for perception only to themselves. No fragment of a broken cup can be used as a cup, nor claim it IS the cup. It is what it is: a fragment of something broken. Knowing it is not enlightenment, but a good start, far as I'm concerned.

Glad to hear it, Cloud Recluse! Here's one of the stories the ayahuasquero told me about one way ayahuaska is used by the tribe he's been in contact with. In the third month of pregnancy, they start giving it to the future mother and her husband. The purpose is to enable them to hear the baby's unique song, the song of a new life. When they hear it, they learn to sing it. Then they teach it to the whole tribe, whose all members proceed to rehearse it to perfection. When the baby is born, they give her some ayahuaska and the parents and the whole tribe sing the baby's very own personal life song to her. This way the unbreakable bonds are formed right from the start, the baby knows that everybody knows and understands her, and so no one needs to be admonished to "love thy neighbor," this love is imprinted systemically and is as natural as breathing. It is a rite of acceptance and respect for the new and unique human being on the block. To compare, when a baby is born in our culture, she gets eighteen shots of dead bugs laced with mercury and a bunch of designer petrochemicals into the blood stream. Quite a rite in its own right, don't you think?..

I was doing them regularly for a while, and still do them occasionally. The most noticeable long term effects are pliability and softness -- and with regular practice, a "boneless" feel to the body. This part may indeed be Russian, Yoda, if we're talking sturgeon and similar Russian prehistoric monsters with flexible cartilage for backbone, of which I am one.

The best meditations for me are the difficult kind. For starters, I sit in the full lotus pose for "the real thing." I avoid meditations that ignore the body. I seek to feel transformed by meditation, not "relaxed." I have discovered experientially that transformation in meditation is contingent on breaking through a difficult obstacle, just like transformation through birth, a shamanic "quest," or (probably) death. I've meditated "the relaxed way" this way and that way for many years, only to discover in a bad crunch that none of these techniques could make a dent in my predicament. So I proceeded to seek out and practice the difficult kinds, the tempering, transforming kinds. These I found to have life-saving power in a real-life crisis. I'm a pragmatist and meditation for the hell of it doesn't interest me; I'm after meditation the tool, the usable tool of shaping myself the way I want to shape myself... a tool that can work exactly as planned... and then... ...and then blast through all my pre-transformation self's plans and surprise and shock it by morphing me into something entirely else.

Thank you! OK, let's see... in no particular order: Taijiquan (Chen style) Qigong Female internal alchemy External alchemy TCM Classical feng shui (Xuan Kong, form/compass, Flying Stars, etc.) Chinese astrology Calligraphy and Rapid Ink painting Talismanic sorcery I Ching divination Assorted odds and end towards cultivation of the Triple Treasure of perfection, nondecay, immortality Some of these I'll be happy to discuss, while others are on hold, either because I'm out of practice, too much of a beginner, too much of an expert, or sworn to secrecy. Thanks for asking!

I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with is not it, and what's it seems strange and scary to me. -- Grandpa Simpson I loved you for your body, there's a voice that sounds like God to me declaring that your body's really you. -- Leonard Cohen Ong namo gurudev namo (I bow before my higher self) -- a Hindu chant It's not hard to wrong a cat but there's no honor in that, I can assure you. That's right, none whatsoever! -- Mikhail Bulgakov