morning dew

^^ pretty much this, IMO. I suppose if I had an incurable illness/disease and he had the reputation of curing such things in an hour, I might splash out 900 euros for an hour (or whatever). Also, I guess if I were some kind of high-level student and needed to learn a specific technique from a genuine 'master', maybe I might go for it. Otherwise, I'm not going to pay 300 euros just to see somebody moving around iron filings with their fingers lol

There are some fun little clips and quotes in here:

That's fascinating. I had no idea you could blend things like that successfully. I shall make some more investigations on his channel.

Yeah, book was a laugh from what I remember. The first episode has appeared on Amazon prime now; I'm saving it for this weekend at some point.

Ooops, fair enough. Thanks for the heads up. Hung Gar is quite a laugh, IMO. I tried it out for a few months (many, many years ago) and, even though I'm nearly six foot, I was easily the smallest one there by quite a long way lol I'm surprised he combines tai chi with Hung Gar. From what I can remember from doing the latter, it was all about intent and punching straight through the opponent's guard, as if it wasn't there, without worrying about blocking them or pushing the guard out of the way. I thought the video was quite fascinating, especially when he was talking about going in the reverse way to shift the opponent and also about being neutral.

Joking aside, Frater UD and Carroll both have sections on pictorial sigils, which is pretty similar to future modelling, IMO. Also, Grant Morrison was doing a similar thing when he wrote The Invisibles, I would say.

I still use my "materialist" label at times. "Physicalist" is just more descriptive in this kind of discussion. Actually, looking here, maybe 'materialism' isn't such an outdated term: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/#Ter Exactly. My perspective is worthless for anyone who believes in any form of life after death Well, that's fair enough. I free-float, so I entertain all sorts of perspectives at times, depending on what I'm trying to achieve. All that kind of stuff is for us, not for those who have departed. Also a fair enough perspective. Personally, I'm not a fan of following ritual and tradition (unless it serves some practical purpose), although I'd be curious to know if there were shamans/priests, acting as psychopomps, who did rites for the dead to help them transition/go wherever they were 'meant to' go. The Way of Dao is inhumane (Chapter 5, TTC). There is no caring here; only the doing of the processes. Well, this is what I thought, but I was getting confused with the translation. For example, at the end of section 6:5, it kind of reads to me as if the Dao does care or at least knows better than we do (perhaps, I'm not interpreting it correctly?): There's no purpose, sorry. No need to apologise. I can't think of anything worse than life having a fixed purpose, because autonomy is probably my highest value; in fact, even if we could determine the meaning of life, I'd probably still be doing my own thing if I didn't like it. But there is the doing. And beautiful experiences can be had. And we have a brain that is capable of remembering and recalling the good times. I think that's enough. Yeah, there's plenty there to make life worthwhile, IMO. And if there's something afterwards, I'll deal with it when I get to it. Right now I'm more focused on mundane things, such as health and making a living – I wasn't planning on creating an immortal fetus in the immediate future.

That's the first thing I thought when I saw the title.

Did RAW not make it to Russia? Or does the Soviet school do something more or different?

Thanks Yeah, materialism is long outdated anyway, IMO; physicalism is a more accurate term these days. Okay, that's fair enough. My query with the two perspectives (physicalism vs internal alchemy) for that particular quote is that it doesn't seem to make that much sense from a physicalist perspective. If there is no more awareness after death, why would we be making sacrifices to the dead (unless, perhaps, for some kind of psychological closure?)? Also, why would we think the setup of reality or natural processes is in our best interests and that the 'Dao' cares about us and that we should come obediently/willingly as a child if we, again, adopt a physicalist perspective? At least if we have the opportunity to have another go, life might make some kind of sense (perhaps, we are given the opportunity to explore reality in every kind of permutation and experience and existence); otherwise, we seem to be left with a kind of Christian 'God has a plan'/'God knows best' explanation for all the misery and suffering in the world.

In what way or how do you consider it serious?

These are quite interesting. I enjoyed reading them. I'll try and see if this link works: http://wellnesscom.info/32-powerful-bruce-lee-quotes-will-change-life/ eta: this one is clickable for people if they see it.

I thought this was great to watch. He is very smooth and elegant, and very relaxed. I also found this quite fascinating. (I still haven't watched all of it.) I've never seen anything like it before; I had no idea (before this thread) that things like this even went on in tai chi. .

Okay, so one possible interpretation could be as below? If we practice internal alchemy (jing > chi > shen > immortal fetus?), then we are going to realise or naturally do the following four: 1. Zili (blackened, by his old age) – by not wasting jing and transmuting it, we are actually going to get to old-age and in a healthy state. 2. Zisi (the sacrifice to dead) – by understanding their survival of personality after death, we make sacrifices to help the dead transition? Or is this more acknowledging ancestors and even realising we may contain (bits of) our previous existence/incarnation? 3. Ziyu (the multitude) – we understand we are composed of bits and pieces, both physically and energetically, and that it's possible to stop the 'soul' from shattering on death. 4. Zilai (to come obediently/willingly as a child) – we start to understand the setup of reality or natural processes are in our best interests and things go smoother if we follow internal alchemy. Also, physical death isn't such a big deal if we can earn another go. I'm not really sure if this makes sense; I'm just rambling a little here. Also, I'd be interested to see a non-internal-alchemy interpretation of this paragraph now that we have some understanding of the names of the people. Could we achieve 1 – 4 through just a philosophical understanding of things like wu-wei and Zen's/S.Suzuki's 'big mind' perspective (if I've understood it right)?

This is outstanding. I had a couple of questions and comments on this, but I was wondering if I was beginning to wander too freely with ease. Shall I post them in here or go back to 6:5?

Aha! That's fascinating So these are actually four physically different human beings becoming friends? That is, ZZ is in favour of socialising when there is harmony and isn't into being a hermit/recluse? Or are we talking about a single physical human being playing these four roles in, or to achieve, harmony?

Yeah, it's unfortunate, IMO. I can't believe ZZ and co. would miss an opportunity to add another layer by not using names of some significance; I would have thought they were just too smart and crafty to pass it up. Do we have any thoughts from people who can translate the original Chinese? I think I found it here: http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/great-and-most-honoured-master#n2756

I side with Plaid Cymru 72%, apparently.

Yeah, he certainly is the ultimate tease; I think he would find it quite amusing if he could see us struggling to work out what he wrote. Yeah, I kind of thought along the lines of friendship being a process, a kind of harmony achieved when everybody is functioning in the same way or going towards the same goal. The names of all these people confuse me, though. I wondered if they were symbolic of a single organism, but didn't know what they all meant because I can't read the original in Chinese. What would all these names (Sir Sacrifice, Sir Chariot, Sir Plow and Sir Come) refer to?

Yeah, I get the impression (so far) that he's not really into proselytising or fixing/saving people, but also that he's not into going and living in a cave in the middle of nowhere by himself. For example, we have the following in section 6:5: Here there seems to be an implication that friendship is a natural and 'good' process, unless I'm reading too much into it.

Ah, so you think this is physical as well as psychological distancing? Do you think ZZ is suggesting actually physically avoiding these (status-seeking/competing) people? I get the impression ZZ is not as concerned with us setting people on the 'right' path as something like Buddhism is.

Okay, this whole fish thing … I'm assuming it's talking about things like status and self-esteem and comparing yourself to others and categorising certain behaviours or achievements as good or bad, etc? The solution is to do whatever you do, to be authentic and natural, and forget self-awareness/self-reference during the process? Is this Zen's "When you are hungry, eat; when you are tired, sleep"?

Sounds like a good teacher to me.

Yeah, I would imagine Bruce is incredibly overbooked for one-to-one time. I've done private lessons in the past many years ago when I used to do martial arts. I also find them very useful. Thanks for the book recommends; they look very interesting. I'm going to sit down this week and have a look at that video properly. I also discovered some practical martial arts applications for Wu on yt that looked quite fascinating. I'll have to post some to see what people think once I've gone through them.