wandelaar

Is there an orthodox form of Daoist Nei Gong? Or are there only different interpretations and guesses?

Nothing wrong with (also) looking inside oneself when you see others do or say something that you consider as being wrong. As to the political discussions in the Trump topics , I know that I would have a hard time myself to avoid the fallacies and obsessive behaviour that I have seen there if I were to join in the discussion. But in my mind that doesn't disqualify me for making judgements on what is going on in those topics. I can see from both the inside (on the basis of my own experience) and the outside (what others do) what is going wrong. Further I don't think one can have knowledge in moral matters (there are no facts in the ethical domain to which one could compare the correctness of one's own stance), and so the difference between judgement and discernment escapes me. It looks like just a play on words. The idea that one should not include a penalty in one's judgements is OK with me as long as there in not too much at stake. I think it is better to leave others free to do as they please than to moralise. But when someone grossly misbehaves on this forum than I surely think a penalty such as a (temporary) ban is appropriate. So this depends on the kind of behaviour. But I never proposed to penalise Bums simply for having political discussions.

How could somebody who considers being judgemental as wrong have any problem with others who don't see a problem in being judgemental? Isn't the judgement that being judgemental is wrong itself a form of being judgemental? It seems to me that as a conscious human being one simply cannot escape from being judgemental. That is: as long as one has conscious likes and dislikes.

Is there a problem in judging something as wrong in others that you know you also have to fight against in yourself?

Does that mean that discernment is simply judging well, in which case judgement need not be wrong when done well?

And that's the problem with being non-judgemental. People are not equal in knowledge, experience and capability. And not everything is of equal quality. Are we to refrain from all negative comments even when we know and feel that something is completely wrong?

Yes - when you judge others then the judging is often felt by the others as being pushed down, irrespective of what the judging was about and whether there was a factually correct aspect to it. The feeling of being pushed down then often results in the other person trying to push you down in return. After that the discussion then often quickly escalates with the result that no serious discussion of the original judgement happens.

Maybe you could write about judging others in my new topic? That could give us something to think about...

I am not offended. I am ready to accept criticism of my own (lack of) cultivation, but that is not what this topic is about. And that's why I saw the two quoted remarks as examples of ad hominem arguments (a fallacy that is frequently encountered in heated political debates). I will open a special topic about being judgemental for further discussion on that issue. See here:

And that's how political discussions here quickly turn into personal attacks. Point proven.

Just describing what I saw...

You are right that spirituality should show in everyday life, and thus also in the way politics is discussed. But even from this perspective I didn't see spirituality in action in the Trump topic(s). There may well have been some moments here and there where spirituality was manifested, but overall the discussion in the Trump topic(s) wasn't any better than the heated political (non)discussions you see everywhere else on the internet. Or from a Laoist perspective: just a waste of time.

@ Aetherous I could well imagine political discussions from a Taoist and/or spiritual perspective that would be very interesting and appropriate for The Dao Bums. Unfortunately the Trump topic(s) had no connection to Taoism or spirituality as far as I could see. Besides there was hardly any real discussion going on, and the topic(s) created a lot of ill will. For those kind of topics a hidden subforum would be ideal. I know there are men's and women's subforums, but I never even tried to take a look, and consequently am happily oblivious to what is happening there. If the Trump topic and kindred heated political topics were moved to such a hidden subforum that would certainly make a big difference.

It's no use to repeat what has already been said many times over. I took a look repeatedly how the Trump thread was doing, but I saw no real discussions going on and lots of the usual fallacies that tend to surface when people get angry and egos get hurt. I think it was wise not to step into the arena. It certainly saved me a lot of time and trouble.

Still think that Trump's character flaws are very relevant, and that the proposal to not attack him and only constructively, civilly and respectfully talk about him makes it almost impossible to discuss the ugly and dangerous aspects of his personality as they relate to his presidency.

I thought this topic was about the way Bums talked about each other in the Trump thread (and that's an important reason why I stayed away from the topic), but now it appears to be about comments on Trump's character. To me as a relative outsider (not living in the US) it's clear that Trump has very serious character flaws that can have dangerous political consequences worldwide. If Trump were a decent Republican (or Democrat or whatever) the discussion could be purely about his political deeds and doctrines, but as it is his personality is much too relevant to be left out of the discussion.

@ LiT Correct - there are many in between cases.

The advantage of evil doesn't exist when reincarnations and karma (or heaven and hell) are real. In that case evil is just stupidity. But how about the (not so implausible) case that reincarnations and karma (or heaven and hell) are just invented stories to keep people on the right track?

Could you tell something more about the "demon ghost cave" ?

@ shortstuff On another site I had a similar experience once where some guy hated my opinions and as a revenge started posting all kinds of lies in my name! The moderators there didn't stop the trolling and the result was that other posters could no longer see what were my posts and what were those of the troll! So eventually I stopped posting there. Happily the moderation here is much better and one can even put unappreciated Bums on one's ignore-list so that one no longer sees their posts. As to the refusal to accept corrections to one's views even when those views are proven to be false - unhappily that is a quite common phenomenon: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Backfire_effect

Wasn't that the same with the Buddha? He also realised that most wouldn't understand or listen. So yes - most people will not appreciate your advise, but some will.

@ OldDog I like to read your comments on the book when you have read it. Yang frequently refers to this book: https://www.amazon.com/Qigong-Meditation-Embryonic-Yang-Jwing-Ming/dp/1886969736/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1544024090&sr=1-1 Have you already read that? I haven't. But apparently he thinks embryonic breathing is the key to the more advanced forms of qigong...

I have read the whole book now, and learned a lot. But unhappily I don't know how close Yang's qigong interpretation stays to the interpretations from internal alchemy. It looks like he mixes in some modern science here and there.

Yang also speaks of shen gu in his book. What I am wondering about is whether anatomical knowledge in the time of Lao tzu was such that talk about a valley could have referred to the space between the two lobes of the brain.

See page 520.