SirPalomides

Ooh, looks like I really hit a sore spot for Barhopper. I look forward to my rehabilitation for "good behavior"!

Sometimes Wudang are the good guys, e.g. the character Li Mubai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a Wudang disciple. Wudang Sect is an interesting part of the wuxia lore- it is a creation of novelists like Jin Yong and is not the same as the historic Wudang. For one thing, the Wudang sect in this world is not really monastic and the disciples seem to marry or wander at will. When Wudang disciples appear as villains the implication is that the sect has somehow been corrupted from its original noble purpose. In 1993's The Bride with White Hair (starring Leslie Cheung and Brigitte Lin) Wudang is depicted like this- a once noble order reduced to enforcers for the corrupt and collapsing Ming government.

So in other words you had Ralis "on ignore" yet were continually monitoring his behavior. In case anyone was wondering what it means when Starjumper ignores you.

Man, the more we say things like this, the more it feels like a messianic prophecy for an ever receding eschaton. In a few years we'll be saying, "when @sean returns he will cool the planet with his breath of benevolence, silence the din of battles, and wipe away the orphan's tear."

Some quotes from the Xiang'er (early Celestial Masters commentary on the Dao De Jing) from this article: Humans should only preserve their bodies; they should not love their bodies. What does this mean? By maintaining the admonitions of the Way, we accumulate goodness and complete accomplishments; accumulate essences and complete spirits. When spirits are completed, the transcendents live long. This is why we treasure our bodies. ... When the practices of one of the Way are completed, the spirits call on him to return. He leaves the world, feigns death, and passes through the Great Yin. He is born again and does not perish. Therefore, he is long-lived. Vulgar people do not attain good merit; they die and belong to the Earth Officers. This is to perish.

All I'm saying is that you can't muddle the stethoscope with a balcony until your sidereal solecism nibbles the ants, you know?

Yep. What we need to get out of our heads though is the idea that "soul" and "body" refer to things on completely separate planes of reality. Even in a Christian context that idea is relatively recent, and I don't think it has any application in ancient Chinese cosmology.

Those are certainly words you typed there.

I guess it would depend on how one defines "physical immortality." The problem is that there is no sharp distinction between "physical" and "spiritual"- what is "spiritual" is really just a more refined form of the same stuff that "physical" things are made of. Many early Daoists did not deny that the adept's body would break down at some point. They called this feigning death, and what survived was something very fine that had been cultivated in the body but which enjoyed a mode of existence free of the constraints of our grosser forms. It was physical in the sense that it was of the same fundamental substance as everything else- but the same is true of the Apostle Paul's πνεῦμα.

Today I learned that high-level shamans dress like the servers at Western-themed gay bars, and that Brokeback Mountain is located in the Ecuadorian Andes.

This sentence is nonsensical on a couple of levels. One, it ignores well-attested attitudes to the afterlife in China prior to Buddhism. Two, it implies Buddhism has “the idea of spiritual immortality like that of Christianity”, which Buddhism emphatically does not.

I tossed off a remark about him being alone in his cabin and he replied with an itemized list of the livestock that keep him company. Yeah, he gives a damn.

One figure who shows up as a villain in kung fu movies is Bai Mei/ Bak Mei, "White Eyebrows," who is based on a semi-historical figure. In the Shaw Bros classic Executioners from Shaolin he is an evil Daoist abbot with a retinue of (presumably unscrupulous) monks. He has some outlandish powers including a weak point that moves throughout his body according to the time of day. It's really frustrating.

I think "niangniang" (lady) or "daniang" (great lady) are ways of addressing goddesses in Chinese.

Tell us more about your imaginary friends, hippy!

His foot should stamp,And his throat should growl,His hair should twirl,And his face should scowl;His eyes should flash,And his breast protrude,And this should be his customary attitude.

Since you've already shared your fervent wish that 95% of the population be exterminated, shouldn't your only criticism here be its lack of ambition?

That's when the mask of "cool, grizzled mountain man" falls off and the face of a bitter, thin-skinned acid burnout alone in a cabin is revealed.

Another rainy day in the Andes, I guess

I wouldn't give the critical blog any credence- that person obviously has a grudge going well beyond any legitimate concerns. And it is not unusual for talismans to be sold by Daoist temples. That said the Taoistsecret website does have a pretty glossy, commercial flavor to it, centered around selling products and books. That makes me suspect the guy is looking to make money, at least as much as he is looking to enlighten . Also, based on the web-content, which is full of grammar errors and oddities (e.g. referring to Laozi and Zhuangzi as "fundamentalists") I can bet that the books he's selling are going to be a chore to read for English readers.

Pope Tawadros (Coptic Orthodox) on the left wearing an 'emma; Patriarch Kirill (Russian Orthodox) wearing the koukoulion. The 'emma always made me think a very comfy millipede had fallen asleep on someone's head.

Symeon Du, bishop of the Chinese Orthodox Church. I actually think klobuks are cool but some people find them silly.

Romeiko Ensemble, wearing the choir vestments from Byzantine times

Actually almost all of that language is Platonism. Christian theology is very much a development of Platonism. The main departure from classic Platonism is the doctrine of the incarnation but even that is discussed with Platonic and Aristotelian concepts. I should also say God is not essentially male in orthodox Christianity, except insofar as a person of the Trinity incarnated as a male human. Referring to God as “He” is a matter of convention and sometimes metaphor (there are also feminine metaphors for God).

A quote from On the Divine Names by Dionysius the Areopagite: The Universal Cause which filleth all things is the Deity of Jesus, whereof the parts are in such wise tempered to the whole that It is neither whole nor part, and yet is at the same time whole and also part, containing in Its all-embracing unity both part and whole, and being transcendent and antecedent to both. This Deity is perfect in those Beings that are imperfect as a Fount of Perfection; It is Perfectionless in those that are perfect as transcending and anticipating their Perfection; It is the Form producing Form in the formless, as a Fount of every form; and it is Formless in the Forms, as being beyond all form; It is the Being that pervades all beings at once though not affected by them;and It is Super-Essential, as transcending every being; It sets all bounds of Authority and Order, and yet It has Its seal beyond all Authority and Order.It is the Measure of the Universe;and it is Eternity, and above Eternity and before Eternity. It is an Abundance in those Beings that lack, and a Super-Abundance in those that abound; unutterable, ineffable; beyond Mind, beyond Life, beyond Being; It supernaturally possesses the supernatural and super-essentially possesses the super-essential.And since that Supra-Divine Being hath in loving kindness come down from thence unto the Natural Estate, and verily took substance and assumed the name of Man (we must speak with reverence of those things which we utter beyond human thought and language), even in this act He possesses His Supernatural and Super-Essential Existence—not only in that He hath without change or confusion of Attributes shared in our human lot while remaining unaffected by that unutterable Self-Emptying as regards the fullness of His Godhead, but also because (most wonderful of all wonders!) He passed in His Supernatural and Super-Essential state through conditions of Nature and Being, and receiving from us all things that are ours, exalted them far above us