wandelaar

Always nice to have a straw man to trample upon...

Don't know what that means, but if you can experience it try this to find out for yourself what frequency resonates at the third eye level: http://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/

Well, I guess ignoring is also a kind of solution, at least for Marblehead. But does the Sage really don't care? Lao tzu did care (as seen in his political chapters), and the Chuang tzu (if I remember well) sometimes talks of the supposed Golden Age, when all was still well...

That's missing the point. If you or I didn't pay our taxes, didn't vote, didn't participate in politics, didn't do any volunteer work, etc. that wouldn't make a notable difference to society at large. But that doesn't mean society would survive if everybody did only care for his own business. The Taoism of Chuang tzu could still be a personal philosophy for the spiritual elite, but when it's claiming to be viable as a world view for an entire population it looks problematic to me because of the missing social/political dimension.

I understand the position of Chuang tzu from a purely individualistic viewpoint ("What's in it for me?"), but I miss the larger concern for how society is doing. This is where I appreciate Confucius who is actually willing to put himself in danger in trying to improve society, whatever you may think of his way of doing that.

What will go on after the death of an individual is the Tao, and because each individual (whether he "follows the Tao" or not) is a manifestation of the Tao that aspect (the Tao) of the individual will never die and wasn't even born with the individual. That is the kind of immortality Chuang tzu recognizes. Not the magical and ritualistic practices that aim at extraordinary things or capabilities. At least that is how I see it, and I haven't seen anything pointing in another direction. But Chuang tzu does indeed leave open the hypothetical possibility that an individual might live on after death. The thing isn't further developed though, so it seems rather like an expression of Chuang tzu's philosophical scepticism (comparable to the dream of the butterfly).

This topic is not about Taoists generally but about Lao tzu and Chuang tzu. Did they also consider 120 years to be a normal span of life?

And here's the sentence in English:

Here is the note in English:

In this Dutch translation there is an explanation: https://books.google.nl/books?id=SrKgAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false See: Are there also any English translations that mention the great square here in the Chuang tzu?

@ CityHermit! In chapter 15 of the Chuang tzu extreme forms of energy, breathing and longevity practices are considered overly complicated. The best thing is living out ones natural span of life and accepting death when it comes.

@ Rara There are thousands of forms of religion and life philosophies one could possibly study but we simply haven't enough time to do so in one life time. So sooner or later you have to choose if you want to become deeply involved in one or two traditions. I personally have no problem with representing those choices by using "boxes". As to the form of meditation of Lao tzu and Chuang tzu I think the most reasonable guess is that it is a form of "just sitting" or what we would now call mindfulness meditation with possibly some simple breathing exercises. Some books on that have already been mentioned.

In the video on "resonant breathing" I looked at, slow abdominal breathing was advised, but I can no longer find it. Edit: Found it! https://research.alcoholstudies.rutgers.edu/resonance-frequency-breathing-practice-video-0

I am not going to use the full "resonant breathing" system, but only the slow abdominal breathing aspect that can more easily be added during my current meditation practice. Until now when my concentration wavered I counted my breaths, but I can just as well use slow abdominal breathing to bring my attention back. That's also more in the spirit of ancient Taoism.

Maybe you could use this site to search for relevant parts of the Chuang tzu: https://ctext.org/zhuangzi?searchu=female (Try some other search terms also.)

Maybe you are right, and maybe you are wrong. There is only one way to find out the truth, and that is "finding out the truth". But apparently people here prefer to proclaim their opinion and to selectively cite those who agree with them. As if that would prove anything. The experiment I started this topic about is almost completely ignored. I didn't start this topic to hear opinions on the paranormal, because I am no longer interested in opinions. I have heard them all before. I made a study of parapsychology myself, and thus I know very well discussions on this topic don't lead anywhere. But I have had enough of it. I will not read any new post in this topic. Have a nice time debating...

I have tried out slow abdominal breathing during my visit at the dentist today. Hard to say what exactly was the effect but I was relatively relaxed. I am gonna add it to my daily meditation.

We are now on page 6. And the preaching of the believers goes on and on. No end in sight. If only a minute fraction of the time and energy wasted on irrelevant posts had been spend on actually helping with the set up of the experiment, we would by now have had the first results giving an impression of the PK-abilities of those participating in the experiment. But nothing of the sort happened. Besides: there are skeptical organizations willing to test persons claiming to have paranormal abilities, so if our experiments here would have proved fruitful we could go to the skeptics to see what happens. That was the next step I had in mind, but as I am only getting vast amounts of irrelevant preaching and generalizing accusations my interest in this topic is rapidly declining.

Could you give a link where I can find some more information on that?

I meditate every day until other things get in the way and I can no longer keep it up. Than I have much trouble to start again with my daily meditation. My meditation only helps when I meditate daily, so for me it's an all-or-nothing thing. My intention is to keep it up for the rest of my life, but I know sooner or later other things will again get in the way and than I will again stop meditating. My results will than slowly ebb away until I start again. This process has been going on for many years now (20 or 30 years? I don't know how long).

The favorable results of meditation are only felt afterwards, so to me meditating feels like taking an unpalatable medicine. I don't like just sitting, but I do it because of the long term results.

It's both feelings and arguments. But as I know that part of the meditation practice consists in temporarily resisting to follow the wish to stop meditating, the feelings are not strong enough to make me stop. The feelings seem to use the arguments to make their point. But as I wrote, as soon as I start my hour of meditating I will complete it till the CD has reached it's end.

I always complete the meditation when I get myself to sit down and start the CD. Then I sit until the CD is finished. Usually halfway during the meditation arguments pop up why I should quit and do something else, but I just observe those arguments and continue meditating till the end. There are three situations when I find it hard to meditate: 1) Too busy. 2) Not feeling well. 3) Having had a lot of trouble during the day.

What I want to achieve: - Peace of mind. - Increased emotional independence from external disturbances. - Greater freedom of choice by recognizing and being able to forgo automatic reaction-patterns. (I already notice these effects when I daily meditate, but the problem is continuing with the practice day after day.) How do I meditate: - Just sitting (on a chair) for one hour, with a CD with meditation-music playing in the background, and watching my thoughts and feelings come and go. Sometimes watching my breath and counting when my concentration gets lost. (I don't need great mystical revelations or magical capabilities, and I don't expect them with my minimal spiritual investment.)

It seems to me that the early Taoists wanted to break free from social conventions to allow their inner nature (te) to express itself. An interesting point would be researching whether Chuang tzu thought gender roles derive from nature or nurture (or both). My guess is that Chuang tzu is in the nature camp, after all we also find different "gender roles" for males and females in the animal kingdom. But if it happens that you absolutely have to please the feminists to survive in the current postmodern academic environment you could describe Chuang tzu as a patriarchal badass. That is: if he indeed proves to be in the nature camp. Of course when Chuang tzu happens to believe gender roles are social constructions than that can be presented as one more "proof" that the feminist theory about the social construction of gender is correct. They will than happily accept him as an early precursor of their own superior (pre)conceptions. It also helps when you already are of the same persuasion as the postmodern feminists. Happily I am no part of the postmodern academic milieu and can think and write what I like without having to worry about politically correct indoctrination or censorship.