OldDog

Looking forward to this study. I think care needs to be taken that later influences ... Buddhism and the developed esoteric schools of Daoism ... be identified if we are going to reference their technic and concepts. I have come to consider Neiye as foundational texts that later traditions drew on as their practices evolved. Many of us are not familiar with these later traditions. I think it were better to keep as close to the Neiye texts as possible.

Oh yeah, phone books. I remember them. I actually found one when I was cleaning out some old boxes of stuff we had stored away. My wife said maybe we should hold on to them to show the grandkids.

Yeah, need to scrape off the rust.

Guy Clark is my favorite singer-songwriter ... ... thought I'd share.

Wow, interesting article. Wonder how it will be received. Pretty sure no one will care or look deep enough into what he is trying to say to understand the implications. Every day we become more of an oligarchy. Nobody to hold accountable.

To study the classics is to study the threads that bind all knowledge. - Deng Ming-Dao, Everyday Dao

Could be ... but I don't have to depend on anyone to be spiritual.

Never heard it expressed in such strong terms ... but, yeah, I have to agree.

"The worst thing that ever happened to healthcare was it became an industry." - Anonymous

You ain't just a woofin! I've had the same doctor for about 30 yrs. Finally got tired of trying to find one that made sense. Only go once a year to satisfy the managed care plans annual wellness check. Otherwise, I have a great TCM practitioner to help with everything else. Have found that if I exercise right and maintain guardian qi i do pretty well.

Ry y Flaco ... Y el group mas bueno.

Heard this on the radio this morning. Too good not to share.

All things come to life, but we cannot see their source. All things appear but we cannot see the gate from which they come. All men value the knowledge of what they know, but really do not know. Only those who fall back upon what knowledge cannot know really know. Is this not a great problem? - Chuangtse (trans: Lin Yutang)

Sunday morning jazz ... vocals

Taiji ball (literally) was an important part of my Chen style taiji training. It goes hand in hand with silk reeling exercises and is very helpful when entering into push hands training. The exercise helps you develop a sense of your own center and internal movement and response. Very good. Here is the exercise as I learned it.

Definitely not solely mechanical. There is a mechanical aspect of doing but he practice goes way beyond that ... and, it is not intentional ... at least in terms of a focused objective. Practice is irregular. I like the peaks and valleys image. For me the practice has the purpose of integrating the whole. Bringing my whole being ... physical, mental and spiritual ... into a harmonious condition. That is the being that I want to encounter the world with.

I went back and re-read the OP ... There was something in what you stated that resonated with me that I felt I could speak to. In spite of all that has been said, I think your issue is as you stated ... a question of integration. That is, of getting your meditative state to inform your involvement in the real world. This is a problem that I think Daoist practice is uniquely positioned to address. Because, unlike other religious/spiritual approaches, it is not really focused on transcendence, extinction or salvation. The awareness that is sought is intended to help you be responsive in a natural way to reality. In a natural way means in harmony with the times and events. So, when I suggested earlier that in awareness you should remain still and let your true self become clear what I am referring to is the process of learning awareness, letting this sense of fragmentation pass away. I tend to look at this process of awareness as a whole body experience involving the physical, mental and spiritual. It is your whole being that has to respond to your reality. Hopefully, through your meditative ... and other ... practices you are developing your whole being. So, in addition to meditation, you can benefit from physical practices that help bring your physical being along with your mental and spiritual being. You want to be able to present a whole self to your reality that can respond naturally. Now, about work. It has been my experience that responding well at work is largely a question of having all the information at hand to see the solution, the right course of action, that is in accord with the times and circumstances. This is where your developed sense of awareness comes into play ... integration, as you put it. If you are having difficulty seeing the solution or right course, perhaps it is because not all of the information has presented itself. Of course, part of this is the training for your particular vocation. It sort of presumes that you have developed enough expertise to have all the tools at hand. So, I guess what I am saying is, you don't have to be in a constant state of meditation for your practice to inform the other functions in your life. That is not the goal of meditation. The awareness is a developmental thing. Continue your practice and then return to the realities of your world and let the awareness inform your actions. It's the other side of your practice. This approach is what has worked well for me over the years. Hopefully, it will resonate for you.

Dwai had a really good response. I would add ... In awareness ... let the fragments arise and dissolve ... just observe them and then let them pass. Remain still and let your true self become clear.

You guys are too deep for me.

🎼 Something's gotta give - Something's gotta give - Something's gotta give. 🎵

Thoughts ... The Daoist point of view presents a bit of a problem for people. Much of Daoism deals with personal development ... cultivation ... as opposed to societal issues. The general advise seems to be by developing yourself you will be in accord with all, including society. If you want to talk about developing society, it might be better to take a Confucian approach. Daoism and Confucianism are not necessarily opposed to each other, if you take the view of personal development and societal development. In the human condition we strive for individual recognition ... and at the same time acceptance within society. It's almost paradoxical. The only way through the dilemma at a personal level that I can see is for the individual to recognize these drives within themself and finding their own personal balance. Without that introspection, one becomes driven without understanding why and then becomes entangled in a way of living that is encumbering. This is a skill that would be worthy of teaching young people but sadly isn't. What we end up with is an unbalanced teaching of whatever is the most politically sensitive/correct view of the day. I have always been a observer of language taking great interest is accents and idioms. I can am able to switch quite easily between a relatively educated manner of expression and a vernacular that is common to where I live in the US. There is a certain amount of tension ... and perhaps pretension ... in an educated ... posh ... vernacular. I often have used switching to a common vernacular to break that tension and dispell pretension. Just a couple of random thoughts.

Oh, I agree entirely. I deliberately stopped reading the paper on Chinese model of cognition ... just short of the discussion on jing and shen ... while I considered the understandings of xin. But, yeah, I am anticipating the consideration of jing and shen to figure prominently in the holistic model. Seems like xin, jing and shen are foundational.

I am not sure what you mean ... the turn of the phrase caused me to stop and consider what it might mean. A while ago Bindi mentioned using yin-yang as a model. That mention was really in reference to thought and feeling but reminded me of what you said about the "trap of quietism". The problem with yin-yang as a model is that we most often think of it as a categorization of things ... this is yin, that is yang. I think that there is another way to look at yin-yang and that is as a process of alternating qualities ... change. Bindi notes " ... both entirely definable individually, but each flowing into the other", which seems to speak to both categorization and change. I think it may also apply to practices as well. A holistic model of life/being/cognition would have to account for our normal active self and our quietened reflective self. When we consider what the Neiye teaches as a practice, in the back of our minds we are thinking about achieving and maintaining a state of awareness of Dao. Perhaps a goal of Neiye is to set up a more balanced ... holistic ... practice that allows us to alternate between the active state and the quietened state ... each informing the other as needed to produce a more balanced way of life. Does that address the problem of quietism?

Me either. I am not declaring something as a matter of fact. Just exploring different possible understandings of the Neiye text ... trying to see what fits. The main point of the Neiye is that of laying out the conditions of practice that allow for the Dao to be experienced. It talks about the conditiins ... not so much the methods. There are references made to quieting the heart-mind of thought and emotions. How might that be done ... by dealing with the sources of input or dealing with the source of response ... or even both. By considering the later, I felt that it helped (me) break away from the usual notions of mind and effort needed to set the right conditions.Those notions were not fitting into my evolving sense of xin as a holistic process.The notion that the heart-mind's usual state is to respond suggests perhaps it's just not all about external stimuli being the impediment ... it is, at least in part, the response itself. While that may be true ... it may also be true that if there is no response then the normal distractions do not disturb. It is not unlike the problem Zen meditators encounter where the effort spent on eliminating distractions can be also be a distraction. Admittedly, I am still working my way through this but it seems to be fitting into the picture better thsn my orevious understanding of what is needed to experience Dao. The Neiye has been a great challenge for such a small text.

Topics do sometimes go astray ... too much extraneous stuff. I try to keep my comments relevant to the point of the thread as concise as possible. No doubt s(he) as an admin has tools at hand to edit the thread. I think we probably played this one out.