七星門

"Stand up & introduce yourself & share something personal," here goes... I come from a background of a highly syncretic western hermeticism & while I am comfortably familiar with Yi King, Daodejing & Zhaungzhou, I'm discovering that my understanding of Daoism has been severely limited/defined by 19th century scholarship & almost entirely based on two texts in a Canon composed of 5k+ (?) volumes. I'm setting out to correct this deficit & to learn what I can from Daoism & integrate it's unique philosophy/practices into my personal framework. To this end I've been reading Robinet, Maspero, am working my way through Bokenkamp's Early Daoist Scriptures. Wong's Seven Taoist Masters is my bedtime reading & so far I've been digging all these. Then yesterday I read Brock Silver's Taoist Manual to get a better understanding of modern Daoist practice & was a little taken aback, the simplicity & naturalness that I expected seems to be better preserved (represented?) in Chan than in modern Daoism. I understand that it's a living tradition & has undergone elaboration but the dizzying proliferation of dieties, the heavy focus on veneration, what seem to me severely proscriptive codes of conduct, particularly those against sexual activities & it's attendant heteronormativity, the inherent uncleanliness of women...just, wow. This seems so far from the philosophy & practice of what I now think is more a romantic fantasy than reality. My perception is that of a righteous tone throughout the work, a never ending litany of "you're not a Taoist, but I am, do as I say" disturbed me despite not identifying as a Daoist...perhaps I'm not humble enough, or maybe he's too puffed up. I do have a fair measure of rebelliousness & more than a little of Cartman's "I do what I want!" This has turned into a very long ramble, but getting to the question, is this really the state of modern Daoism? How do you reconcile equanimity, madhyamika, simplicity, salvation through personal endeavor & celestial intervention, & an "enlightened" perspective with these strong distinctions between "right" & "wrong"? Said otherwise why is he so judgy & how does the average western Daoist reconcile this with modern sensibilities, i.e. equality of the sexes, morally acceptable safe consensual sex, & generally not being a douche? Are these essential elements or are they Chinese societal norms that became integrated with Daoism? Is there a "primordial" (or maybe I mean "progressive") school of Daoism out there that dispenses with these things? A better question, has my admittedly limited understanding of Daoism created a fantasy of "primordial Daoism"? Thanks in advance for suffering through this long post & any insight you may have.

In the works. I'm using Brock Silvers' Taoist Manual ($5 on kindle, well worth it) to guide me as I'm constructing the altar. The altar itself is constructed of locally sourced cherry wood & made by a family of practicing Zen Buddhists finished with beeswax, the pedestal is teak sourced from a Thai family business. Brock suggests one to three deities, so I've invited these three. From our left to right, Guan Yu, Laojun, Zhong Kui. Impossible to find in the states, so they were all sourced from Chinese distributors, I hope they're ethically produced. Altar cloth was made by a lovely woman who is a practicing Buddhist that has a small side business sewing altar cloths & mala bags. She had pieces of a vintage Kimono from the 40s in red with Chrysanthemums & connected the two pieces with a few inches of red silk. Various implements are all brass. Picked up the candlesticks from church surplus on the cheap, candles are beeswax. The brass bowls were all found on Amazon pretty cheaply. The larger bowl is intended for the lustral water. The censer has a pattern of cranes & is topped with a turtle, filled with white ash. Singing bowl was made in Tibet, or so I was told, of seven metals. Sounds lovely. Small Rosewood box has incense & candles, little notebook is a practice log. I am missing two components, foremost is a hardwood twig that is used an aspergillum which I intend to cut on the New Moon when I will "open" the altar. Second are a set of I Ching coins that will rest on our right. In its final resting place I will have it oriented toward the North as he suggests so that the deities are looking South. Once complete there are representations of all five phases, censer as metal, water, twig as wood, candles as fire, ash in the censer as earth. It's been quite an endeavor that required some hunting, but I was able to acquire all the necessary components rather easily. Any suggestion or criticisms are welcome, particularly looking for recommendations for the type of tree to cut a branch from & any recommended manner to thank it for the sacrifice.

I agree that devotional altars are a special breed, very much feel that the installation is not personal property, it is more as a caretaker than an owner that I keep their house. Offerings abound, though! I burned a pile of aloeswood when opening, but now give three lakawood incense sticks morning & evening as well as two candles. I'm keeping fresh flowers & fruit there as well. Tangelos are the perfect size for the offering dishes. I'm still feeling my way through it, but I'm inclined to feel that it's somewhat like digging a well. The water's there, but if you seek it out & make space for it then it nourishes life, makes an oasis.

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." - C.G. Jung

I don't have any advice, just wanted to say that I love your honesty. Welcome!

Caring Hand of Glarus.

Not from suffering Does tea release its nectar Be one with water

It's a good point, but I don't think that we have to know how the watch works to give the time. We should start where we are, choose as best we can with the information we have available & learn as we grow. A point that's unclear, that perhaps I'm reading meaning that isn't there is "acknowledge the complex" &c. The meaning is that we become aware of & dissolve the complexity in a process of simplification that gradually unveils the light, yes?

I'm going to dissent here. It takes time for the light to reach the eye, the eye then encodes & transmits the information, the sensory information is filtered through the various gateways in the brain, stitched together in a scene that makes sense, then the brain must recall the information regarding socks from memory & associate it with the image of reality it has created. It only appears to be instant because our experience of it is "instant" when in actuality even the image of reality our brain has stitched together & used to come to this conclusion is based on data from several microseconds in the past.

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” -Victor Frankl I don't know that we can help when people automatically react, the burden of observing, pausing, & responding lies with them. We can, however, take responsibility for our own response. We can choose not to respond in kind, we can choose to yield like water, we can choose to understand that they are not reacting to the person that is in front of them but to something inside of them. It is compassion & kindness we can offer in response, because in our pause we get to choose the kind of person we want to be.

"I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger: A man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident." -Samesies

I can't really know your mind, & this is probably just another entanglement for me, but I've been reading & rereading the Zuowang lun these past few weeks. Naturally that means I can see parallels in what you describe so I'll post some excerpts that maybe you can relate to, the text alongside others describing Zuowang can be found in its entirety in Kohn's Sitting in Oblivion. "3. Taming the Mind The mind is the master of the body-self, the master of the hundred spirits. When still it gives rise to insight, when agitated to confusion. Delightedly straying in delusions and projected reality, it speaks of obligations and enjoys to be in the midst of action. Who would awaken to see this empty and wrong? Yet, as one realizes one's derangement of mind and consciousness being largely due to one's place of residence, one chooses a new neighborhood and goes to live there. This is already a great improvement. By careful choice of friends one will profit even more. How much more should this process apply when the body-self leaves the realm of birth and death and the mind comes to rest in the center of perfect Dao? Without giving up the former, how could one ever attain the latter? Therefore when one first begins to study the Dao one must sit calmly and tame the mind, let go of projected reality and abide in nonexistence ... However, if one gives free reign to the all mental arising and does not attempt to tame and control it, then one is not really different from ordinary people. ... Any confused deviance or disturbing fantasy should be eliminated as soon as one becomes aware of it. Upon hearing slander or praise, or anything good or bad, one should just radically cut it all out and not admit it into the mind at all. This because if anything is taken in, the mind will be full. With a full mind, Dao has no place to go. Whatever one may see or hear, it should be like one had not seen or heard at all. Then right and wrong, good and evil cannot enter the mind. When the mind does not receive anything from outside, we call it an empty mind. When it does mit pursue anything on the outside, we call it a mind at peace. In a mind at peace that is always kept empty Dao will come to stay of itself. On the inside there is nothing the mind is attached to, on the outside there is nothing one would actively do. One is no longer pure or defiled, which is why slander or praise no longer arise. One is neither wise nor ignorant, which is why profit and loss no longer appear." Maybe you're just aware of the perverse workings of the ordinary mind, its automaticity, a reality built from scraps of sensory data, reacting to stimuli without any awareness. Maybe you've become aware that the ordinary mind runs on delusions & projected reality, that the ordinary functioning of mind is deeply flawed, that this situation is no longer tolerable & you must find a way to discard this way of being. Maybe you've gone crazy or maybe you can now see how crazy you've always been. I can't tell you, neither does this replace any advice from your doctor, but I can say with certainty that insight into our suffering is the first step towards freedom from that suffering. Be still, 七

“One of the most freeing things we learn in life is that we don’t like everyone, everyone doesn’t like us, and that’s okay.” David Bohl, Parallel Universes. (I may post too many quotes!)

I like what ChiForce has to say. People are only sages insofar as they make themselves mirrors for the Dao, right? Maybe a trite technicality when we're asking specifically about living sages, but it occurs to me that maybe despite their multifarious manifestations there's never been & never can be more than one sage present every when & every where. Reminds me of my favorite poem by Rumi,

"The eternal stars shine out again, so soon as it is dark enough." Thomas Carlyle.

Denali National Park.

Oy, sucks to be there but the post was a damned funny narrative.

Oh snap, read it! Folks here will definitely share their ideas with you. Welcome, from one TDB noob to another.

Sisse Brimberg.

Can't insert it, but worth a click. https://m.imgur.com/r/gifs/aXwoWdc

Beyond the senses Poetry of tree boughs in Formless drifting clouds

We might say that first comes sense impressions from which we build a cohesive image of reality & how it functions. Insofar as our model of reality is dependent on the senses we might say that we are born with "beliefs" because the tools of reality construction define the parameters of our reality.

This is interesting to me, I hate "background noise" & don't like music all that much save in very specific situations & generally only instrumental music. As someone who prefers quiet & silence, it's interesting to watch how others function. Their televisions are always chattering at them, radios always blaring. If faced with silence it provokes what appears to be a sort of restlessness & if they can't pipe in noise they're desperate to make it themselves, making a profusion of words to no discernible end or desperately stopping up their ears with earbuds to block out the quiet. I often wonder what effect the words & pictures they ceaselessly stream into their orifices have on them. I went to one concert in my life & in the oppressive immensity of the noise I found myself the only person standing still amongst a great mass that was gyrating & howling, everyone surging forward, hands grasping at the stage, eyes wide & wild, some angry at their neighbors, others lost in elation, & I could only look around me in wonder at the confused mass. It does not seem salutary to me.

"Plants are more courageous than almost all human beings: an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons, whereas instead of dying the average person would rather be someone they are not." Mokokoma Mokhonoana