Taomeow

Altogether elsewhere, two anniversaries today -- one starting an era, on October 4, 1957, the other one ending it, on October 4, 1993.

Don't we all. But the way I came to the taoist understanding of emotions was not theoretical. The theory was a later discovery. Empirically, I was in trouble, and working through emotions "the right way" improved how my body worked, not just how I felt or thought -- changed my basic physiology, metabolism, and vitals -- things measurable and verifiable regardless of what I "believe." My resting heart rate dropped by 30 beats per minute and stayed there for the next 20 years, blood pressure regulated itself to rock solid 110/70 and stayed there, body temperature (which was permanently slightly elevated before, nearly all my life) dropped by 3 degrees Fahrenheit and stayed there, I grew taller by an inch (as an adult who'd long stopped growing before), stuff like that. This is only true for emotions that are disconnected from the body and originate in the neocortex. I mentioned them before (don't remember in which thread though), the so-called "as-if loops" discovered in the brain by modern cognitive neuroscience. Emotions of this kind are not healthy and, as the name suggests, not real, in the sense that real ones always start out in the body and travel to the mind from the body -- before being fed back to the body without looping in an endless cycle. They begin in the body, inform the mind, take feedback to the body, the body expresses them according to instructions based on the mind's feedback... end of emotion. And not vice versa. The as-if loops, by contrast, can indeed run indefinitely -- they have no resolution and that's why they persist in a reverberating circuit that is, for all purposes, inflammatory. A mind disconnected (by repression, in a typical case) from normal communication with the body is chronically inflamed (remember Fire?) That's the sick monkey mind. And it can never find true relief if it remains in this disconnected, looped-onto-itself "higher" state.

You are talking about the Monkey King of the popular level of the novel Journey to the West. Therein, the whole story is about a conspiracy by a bodhisattva who converted to Taoism and became a taoist deity but simultaneously retained her Buddhist ties to facilitate the conquest of China by Buddhism. A double agent, so to speak. Here's an example of how things you and I avoid can however happen even in the celestial realm )) Different emotions, in taoism, have their seat in various organs of the body, and manifest as harmonious and healthy when the whole cycle of wuxing or Five Phases ('elements') is balanced, or as harmful when it isn't. The mind is thought of as the extension of the heart and harbors a kind of steady tempered Joy when balanced, and all its unhealthy manifestations when thrown off balance, including all the boisterous devil-might-care behaviors characterizing the Monkey King of the novel, selfish joy at others' expense. A manifestation of that kind of harmful Joy of the heart-mind is, e.g., the delight of our modern scientists who arrive at a grand mental accomplishment and experience intense intellectual pleasure -- their mind soars! -- while the price of this accomplishment may be torturing hundreds of millions of lab animals, or killing hundreds of thousands of people with the nuclear bomb, or destroying countless families glued to the screens of their computers and cell phones. Thought is the continuation of the emotion of the heart in taoism. All emotions, in taoism, are an interplay of yin-yang, wuxing, and other fundamental factors, some are predominantly yang in their inherent nature and others are predominantly yin -- working harmoniously as a unit when all organs of the body and all its shens (spirits) are healthy. It's fascinating, actually, but too broad a subject to cover in a forum post. If you ever get interested, I can recommend some sources for a deeper take on how the whole enchilada works in taoism. And then there's alchemical taoism that turns it upside down.

Many taoist deities are far from saintly and bland, all they have to do to be worshipped is to be true to their nature. The attributes you mention (with the exception of "indecisive" which is yin within that list of yang attributes) are not "negative," they are "positive" -- yang. Taoist polarity of negativity and positivity doesn't have the idea of "negativity" as "badness" inherent in it. These are all expressions of active yang nature, which can be "bad" only when not counterbalanced by receptive yin forces. Inconstancy and capriciousness, e.g., are physiological features of the healthy heart -- when it acquires a constant, monotonous, mechanical rhythm instead, it is a medical indicator of impending death within 24 hours. The heart is a strange attractor, both mathematically and spiritually. Its rhythm fluctuates continuously around a central constant ("attractor"). Stillness within movement which we seek and, with successful practice, find. Of course. Our understanding rests on the foundation of an interconnected, holistic system which is not self-contradictory and is fully applicable to all aspects of practice. Neither am I. I "tolerate" only some shared terminology borrowed due to historical cross-pollination, but even that -- "niwan" for "nirvana," "karma" instead of "ganying" and the like -- is understood by a taoist very differently, and applied practically the taoist way anyway. So, maybe not 100% strict with terminology (like I said earlier, pointers are pointers, the street sign is not the residence at that address, the map is not the territory) but very strict with ideology. Which is not just different but in many respects opposite. The heart-mind of taoism is a yang aspect of the whole -- Fire, shen, Horse, Monkey, Soaring Dragon, Li trigram, there's many names but the opposite is sought in the yin aspects of the whole -- Water, jing, Turtle, Crouching Tiger, Kan trigram... There's true Water within Fire, there's true Fire within Water, there's a process whereby they unite. Opposites and unity are aspects of the process.

Methinks it's a bit more complicated. The Buddhist version you talk about is one of the interpretations, and a much later one, passed by Buddhists who traveled to China. Who in their turn brought their own borrowing from Hinduism, Monkey-God Hanuman. However, the arrival of Hindu and Buddhist monkey metaphors, concepts and gods was not into a monkeyless China. Part of the inspiration for the image is directly traced to the White Monkey legends from the Chinese Chu kingdom (700–223 BC), which revered gibbons. These legends gave rise to stories and art eventually contributing to the Monkey King figure. People in Fuzhou were worshipping Monkey Gods long before they ever heard of Buddhism or Hinduism. There were 3 Monkey Saints of Lin Shui Palace, who were once Demons, being subdued by Empress Lin Shui Madam Chen Jing Gu. Dan Xia Da Sheng (丹霞大聖) - The Red Face Monkey Sage, Tong Tian Da Sheng (通天大聖)- The Black Face Monkey Sage, Shuang Shuang San Lang (爽爽三聖) - The White Face Monkey Sage. The two traditional mainstream religions practiced in Fuzhou are Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. Many people practice both religions simultaneously. However, the origins of local religion date back centuries before Buddhism. In any event, in alchemical taoism, it doesn't matter all that much what you call the forces you are working with. Names are pointers in the general direction of what to expect of these forces' behavior, helpful only to the extent street signs might be helpful when you're looking for a particular address -- but telling you nothing whatsoever of the actual residents at that address. My own school traditionally incorporated some buddhist terminology and interpretations into its verbal discourse, but when it comes to practical methods, it is one hundred percent taoist. And the heart-mind jumping monkey/racing horse is relevant only as one of those forces, which no one can hope to access, much less alchemically transform, with verbal interpretations, and which a cultivator hopes to tame via the actual monkey see monkey do practice.

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If 2020 was a movie, it would have been "The Room."

In taoism proper, the original version dealing with inner gods, not just emotions but whole organ-system-function complexes associated with particular thinking-feeling-acting processes are personified as gods. A prime example is Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. His name literally means "the One awakened to Emptiness," and the deeper meaning of Journey to the West (which popularized him) contains numerous instructions for internal alchemy practices. The legend of the Monkey King is much older than the novel, and the original authorship is (arguably) attributed to none other than the founder of the Dragon Gate Sect, Qiu Chuji. There is also a scripture written by Liu Yiming that explains the hidden meaning within Journey to the West called "Original Pointers to the Journey to the West." The Monkey King is often referred to as the heart-monkey [心猿]. Together with the horse-mind [意马], this is a core concept in taoist spiritual cultivation practices, representing the "material" to work with, the jumping and racing heart-mind (not two separate or opposite forces but aspects of the same one) that entered western interpretations as the monkey mind. This monkey mind plays a central role in the xing-ming cultivation, a prerequisite on the Way.

There's a Japanese novel, "Shipwrecks," by Akira Yoshimura, depicting the life of a very poor medieval fishing village. The climate and the land were inhospitable for farming, the village survived on seasonal catch -- squid, octopus and sardine, always on the border of starvation. No one had any money to buy rice, but they did hunt for rice. Every year in winter, they set salt cauldrons burning on the shore -- a trap to lure the sailing ships aground on the reef. The ships transported bales of rice. The villagers then attacked and slaughtered the crew and took possession of the rice. It was distributed between households and increased everybody's chances of surviving the winter and not having to indenture more family members to the feudal lords or dying of starvation. I won't tell the rest of the story in case someone wants to read it (it's actually about an epidemic so now may be a precarious time to read it, or the best time, depends). But the point I'm making is, there's plenty of places on Earth where vegetarianism could only be a luxury -- one example is Tibet where for many centuries the poor had only animal food to eat, fruits and vegetables and grains couldn't be grown there and only the wealthy could afford to buy them. For the lamas, vegetarianism was a status symbol. It was the opposite in Europe for much of its history. In the US before abolition, vegetarianism was much advocated as the right way to feed the slaves in order to not foster any rebellious thoughts and ideas of freedom which were thought to be facilitated by meat eating, although some slave owners, mindful of profits, found that the slaves worked better and were healthier when fed pork.

Extremely. And Al-Qaeda, reportedly. Armenians know it can unfold into what a special word in their language stands for -- գոյամարտ, goyamart -- "battle for existence."

Here we go again... another six-thousand-year-old powder keg exploding for the six thousandth time. Or as the not recognized by nearly any country independent republic calls itself,

I wouldn't know how to design that, unfortunately, I only know how to design a very reliable tinfoil hat. The kind that protects from the deadliest of modern weapons -- the ones that wash out the brains by the billions, and install whatever programs the developers of these weapons choose to install at a particular moment in a particular population, for a particular stretch of time, before replacing with the next program. The design of my tinfoil hat gets updated on a daily basis, depending on the programs currently being installed, to safeguard against any breaches. I could make one on request for anyone, but the malware program "tinfoil hat bad" hasn't been uninstalled ever since it got implemented, so there's no orders from those who are continuously running it. And those who know how to design their own don't need my help. Of course it's not made of literal tin foil... not that the literal one would necessarily be useless but who knows... in any event one can't buy any tin foil anymore, I tried. Now we have aluminum instead, in great abundance inside and out -- wrapping up everything, ingested and injected, aluminum all the way. The metal that cancels internal alchemy by interrupting the electrical Thunder of Zhen. But I digress.

This looks like something I ought to watch ASAP! Thank you! I was hoping someone will make a movie out of this plot: ‘Warrior takes an armored cat for a walk’ (着甲武人猫散歩逍遥図) by Noguchi Tetsuya

Red pill or blue pill? Neither. Black pill or golden pill? Both.

What a great idea. I have time machine conversations with assorted people too from time to time, and occasionally over dinner -- if I'm invited. The first time that I recall having such tete-a-tete, it was with Lord Byron. I was 17 and suffering from taedium vitae and mild nausea on a 6-hour-long bus trip when he just popped in and pronounced, The best of remedies is a beef-steak Against sea-sickness: try it, sir, before You sneer, and I assure you this is true, For I have found it answer—so may you. "A beef-steak? Are you sure, Lord Byron?" "Please. Call me George." "Are you sure a beef-steak helps against sea-sickness, George? What about bus sickness?" "No idea, alas -- I've never ridden a bus." "Well, then tell me more about that journey you had Don Juan undertake when leaving his native land and suffering from sea-sickness on the ship." "Gladly, m'lady." He felt that chilling heaviness of heart, Or rather stomach, which, alas! attends, Beyond the best apothecary’s art, The loss of love, the treachery of friends, Or death of those we dote on, when a part Of us dies with them as each fond hope ends. No doubt he would have been much more pathetic, But the sea acted as a strong emetic. I had to make that tedious bus trip on a fairly regular basis for two years (between the university I went to at the time and home) so this became my regular routine. My next host as I recall was Jesus Christ at the Last Supper.

Possibly never. As one of my favorite protagonists, the devil himself in Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" intimated, "Manuscripts don't burn." And that was written a long time before the internet.

I have always read this chapter as a set of taiji practice instructions. Every single image can be tested for meaning and accuracy in tuishou (sparring). They are accurate. Feng/English 15 The ancient masters were subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive. The depth of their knowledge is unfathomable. Because it is unfathomable, All we can do is describe their appearance. Watchful, like men crossing a winter stream. Alert, like men aware of danger. Courteous, like visiting guests. Yielding like ice about to melt. Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood. Hollow, like caves. Opaque, like muddy pools. Who can wait quietly while the mud settles? Who can remain still until the moment of action? Observers of the Tao do not seek fulfillment. Not seeking fulfillment, they are not swayed by desire for change.

Can't speak for buddhists but taoists are only opposed to unnecessary, wanton killing. Taoists don't care much whether it's an insect or a tyrant -- they will kill if necessary, and not think twice about it, just like nature kills some mice because cats have to eat. What nature doesn't do is kill a mouse for being a mouse, an ant for being an ant, a spider for being a spider. I usually take a spider outside if caught in my house, but it has to cooperate and make it easy for me to catch it so as to spare its life. If it crawls into a spot where I can't push a piece of paper under it and cover it with a glass turned upside down and carry it outside, I'll spray it with my homemade anti-spider biowarfare solution. It is my house.

"Shadow" is a metaphor. It stands for one's unconscious defense mechanisms developed in response to traumatic developmental history, real early personal history the memory of which is repressed, relegated to the unconscious, and usually unavailable for retrieval in any "talking" or "thinking" or "analyzing" therapies. What is accomplished in those therapies instead is another level of split from consciousness, from one's actual what-really-happened-to-me early life events. This split then takes the form of the creation of mythological ideation around unresolved feelings, frustrated early developmental needs, experienced developmental adversities and, too often, atrocities. This traumatic history is both ontogenetic and phylogenetic. You essentially assert that there is no such thing as ontogenetic history. This is true for anyone who has severe traumatic amnesia instead of memory of their own early life. Many people are looking into a blank abyss when trying to remember themselves before a certain very late date in life -- prior to which their development was already 95% complete! 4 years of age, 5, 6... or, in cases of heavy repression due to horrendous abuse or neglect, even one's teens. No wonder people wind up perceiving themselves as a collection of assorted "others" -- they have no idea who they are. Whereas 95% of who they are is someone they don't remember. A blank abyss. They themselves are the shadow cast by that abyss. They are not someone "with" a shadow but the shadow itself.

We are here.

A perfect self-ordering structure can only be assembled out of non-identical components that fit in not despite of, but owing to, the fact that they naturally accommodate each other's differences. None of them have to be reshaped toward any rigidly standardized conformity -- in fact, they would be unable to support each other if they were. This kind of natural unity is self-cementing. All other kinds are tyrannical and rely on the external cementing force to hold them together. Key word "force."

One thing still unknown (at least to me): are we about to collide with the axis of the earth or with the firmament of the sky?

Nice samurai skill.