Sketch

See? Cuts right through the gloom.

Very much in line with my current understanding

Only because the idea of being made of meat is hilarious.

I'd like to state that, in my view, the difference between emotions and music is that one travels through air, the other through meat. Whatever it is before it gets here, it's still about frequency - about how fast something is thumping, at some level.

it seems similar to the Wiccan Rede, which embroiders Crowley's "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"

I walk around the house with a ukulele for similar reasons

An example of gaining access to guarded or secret knowledge - or just knowledge that takes time and effort to acquire - is my approach to fishing. I have, overall, mediocre fishing skills. I've fished in a lot of different places - never anywhere long enough in one place in my adult life to get to know a watershed, a method, a local fish well enough. Always at the mercy of making friends with the local fishing community, finding someone who'll show me their fishing hole, tip me to the local mojo, put me onto a fish. Of course, after I make this speech a few times, I've always made a new friend, and they always put me on to some nice Trout or Salmon or whatever's biting.

My view is that learning any kind of skill gives a chance to learn something about Tao. If you can catch a fish you understand Tao - a little. If you make music, you understand Tao - a little. Zhuangzi says a lot about this kind of thing.

From my reading I would say that a Taoist perspective is that emotions are classifiable as manifestations of the classical Chinese 5 element theory; which are seen as attributes arising within specific organs. A fancy way of saying "the smart ones agree with me."

Emotions are interpreted by the thoughts, thoughts can give rise to emotions, which came first the melody or the lyrics, well clearly melody, since things that do not speak still sing.

As stated above, that emotions are a beat, Peter Shea (in his book "Alchemy of the extraordinary:a journey to the heart of the meridian matrix")calls them a frequency of vibration, a quality of vibration. Vibrations carry information in many different ways, from the harmony and rhythm of music (two different types of encoding layered together right there) to the grooves on an old fashioned phonograph which cause the needle to vibrate, encoding the emotional beat in one more layer in this example.

I'm looking at emotions as the heart center, in part consisting of the sensitive plexus of nerves in the upper abdomen, reading the messages that hormones carry through the heart, which are then interpreted by the mind. This is part of how the mind assembles it's shaky model of what's going on around it, and a big source of distortion to the parts of this model contributed by the external senses. A book that informed my current understanding is Daniel Keown's "The Spark In the Machine: How the science of acupuncture explains the mysteries of western medicine"

It's also the result of practice time spent in seated meditation (forgetting) and a standing Zahn Zhuang practice - which generates more of the spring tension than seated time.

I wasn't initially planning to chase results, but the perception of music - and of musical toys - moves "me" in certain ways that are either key to my purpose - or a mode I simply haven't given up yet.

I'm currently reading "The Way of Demons: Shadow and opposition in Taoist Thought, Ritual and Alchemy ", a new book out by Simon Bastian. It would be a better book if the author had read this post.

It seems to be a result of released blocks somewhere along the line. Practice is magic. Unwinding wounds I didn't know i had.

Amazing. Last time I tried to breathe through one nostril or the other, I could not. Hadn't even looked into it until today. Beginner stuff indeed. Thanks for the timely tip!

My house has excellent Feng Shui and it's chock full of musical instruments.

The spiraling into the arm tendons prompted me to get a set of Nunchuks to play with - I knocked myself cold with them once many years ago but have managed not to damage myself so far this time around. They've done my poor, abused shoulders a lot of good (Torn rotator cuffs, both sides)

That's constantly changing, lately a warm up with a "theatrical" version of Shaolin warm ups - from a video by Scott Park Phillips - along with "Holding up the Sky" and spiraling movements from Dr. Yang's "The Essence of Tai Chi Chi Kung".

My current practice is built around seated "empty" meditation and a more active standing Zahn Zhuang practice, along with a lying down practice from a book by Tom Bisio (Daoist Sleeping Meditation: Chen Tuan's Sleeping Gong), supported by tai chi and qigong sets. I'm one of those awful people doing it mostly from books; I have had some Chen style Tai Chi instruction and a few qigong classes, but not lately. Fortunately, the books are better than they used to be. In the meantime, my engagement with the words of Lao Tzu can be seen in a current incarnation through my amateur's attempt at a translation, serialized in the DDJ forums here. I got a cool stainless steel gourd, too.

My attraction to Taoist ideas started out as approaching the Tao Te Ching as a pretty good source of common sense philosophy. Then, as I dug into the words, the "Scalability" of the "advice" became clear. When I turned this perception to my own person, I got an insight that put me on a new track with my personal practices. My goal within these so called "Taoist practices" is to get control of things in my life that I've acquired through coincidence - to unwind the wounds that ideas, behaviors and events have left on the otherwise charming and healthy animal I'm riding around in. Once I've completely done with that, I'll be wiser - in a better position to see what to do beyond that.

Had to be said...

I'm afraid that the Tao that I can put into words is not the real Tao.