soaring crane

well, I mean blockages caused by anything, really. Mental, emotional, egoistic, physical. Add whatever layer you like. And I guess some would argue metaphysical, as well. When approaching energy work from a qi standpoint, I think it's the flow that is important. Qi is even sometimes defined simply as the flow. It isn't the river's water but the river's dynamic. So anything that hinders the flow, hinders the whole. It's what I feel, and by "feel" I don't mean it's my opinion but rather my experience ... something like that. Hope it helps

I'm 51 :-)

I'm absolutely of one mind with you on this, MH

exactly

Well, I had a chance to experiment with "Shui" yesterday evening at a Qigong center in a very nice, spacious room. It was quite lovely. I was playing, trying different strikers and patterns, and my friends were enjoying it. Then one of them walked to the other end of the room, maybe 15 meters away, and just stood there. After two or three minutes, he called out that it was even more intense there. The vibrations were going through the walls and re-entering the room, so to speak. So he was feeling the waves coming straight from the gong through the air while at the same time feeling them come from the wall, more subtely, of course, and kind of "phase shifted", swinging a little slower ... and meeting in his middle, in his bones, and muscles, organs, everywhere. We all had to try it out, of course. Was a pretty profound feeling, I must say :-) A good gong is a good investment. Soon, I want to have all my gongs together in one chorus!

oh, forgot about this thread. Good stuff in there. I can't really add anything to my "get the hell out of the way", lol. To my thinking, a "lack of qi" simply means "an abundance of blockages".

No stars for you!

Interesting, thank you :-) Yes... Sinn can be the "reason" behind the reality, the reason for the season. That does fit well. Btw, I was informed that the Wilhelm may well be copyrighted and not free for commercial uses. It's not 100% clear.

I think about 50% of the "likes" I give are actually intended to let the person know that I read their post and may have responded to it. It's an acknowledgement button (half the time or thereabouts). The other half are genuine likes. Others?

yeah, this is basically where my thoughts were when I started this. But I have to admit I feel a little guilty now, being the one who instigated the change. We were having fun discussing it here. But, no, your statement really says it all and on the whole I'm glad it's gone. I sure didn't expect it to go this fast, though! Gazinga!

??? what are guys clicking on here?

hmm, I don't see "mark as read" under View New at all. But did just discover that that icon next to the View New Content link, the one that looks like a GPS location marker, is in fact a quick navigation tool, haha

hmm, yeah, that's a good point. I get we're all threesies in the end :-)

German to the rescue, lol. btw, I added a couple lines to the end of my post, might interest you...

There's a German word that better describes what I sense when I sense "faith": Urvertrauen The "Ur-" prefix indicates "the original state" and I assume is related to the "Or-" in origin / original. "-vertrauen" means "trust" And this is the German definition: aus der engen Mutter-Kind-Beziehung im Säuglingsalter hervorgegangenes natürliches Vertrauen des Menschen zu seiner Umwelt A person's natural trust in his environment that develops during the nursing period of the intimate mother-child-relationship. We use it to mean unwavering trust in the universe and all that is a part of it. The absolute absence of fear or insecurity. It's not a thought, it's a condition, a state of being, simplified and uncluttered, like a baby. I think its a (the) central theme of the Daodejing. But this is the Budddhist discussion, so I want to leave it at that.

I like your delineation, but it doesn't agree with my sense of what faith is (not that it need do that in the least). Maybe I just don't understand the example. I read it more like a description of being confident that past experience is going to produce future results. It seems more closely related to belief (?). I guess I just don't any connection to the illusion concept. I don't feel faith as being a process of the mind at all. It feels much more substatial than that.

I've been down to one or two at times. I'd like to know what others think about the system in general. It gets very little attention, and there are no statistics, you don't know how many people actually clicked your stars.

how many do you have now?

Where you have Dao, Wilhelm actually used the word "Sinn", which is interesting. It translates to many things in English: Sense (as in sensory), Reason, Purpose and Mind being the three that occur to me at the moment. How did Wilhelm mean the word "Sinn"? I don't really know. But he didn't use "Dao". Where you have "non-existence" he used "nichtsein" which (to me) more literally translates to "not be" (i.e. to be or not to be, etc). It's a little different. The rest seems quite true to the original (and my divergences are only my personal sense of the texts). It's a intriguing adaptation for sure. And one of the earliest into a western language. I want to add that, to my ears, the German is more poetic and picturesque. English translations often come accross as dry and utilitarian (and I'm American). This is good page for comparing many ways to render the first chapter into English: http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/tao-te-ching.htm 1 Der Sinn, der sich aussprechen läßt, ist nicht der ewige Sinn. Der Name, der sich nennen läßt, ist nicht der ewige Name. "Nichtsein" nenne ich den Anfang von Himmel und Erde. "Sein" nenne ich die Mutter der Einzelwesen. Darum führt die Richtung auf das Nichtsein zum Schauen des wunderbaren Wesens, die Richtung auf das Sein zum Schauen der räum lichen Begrenztheiten. Beides ist eins dem Ursprung nach und nur verschiede n durch den Namen. In seiner Einheit heißt es das Geheimnis. Des Geheimnisses noch tieferes Geheimnis ist das Tor, durch das alle Wunder hervortreten.

well maybe because you don't have German on it, lol ;-) It's popular in Portugal, Spain and France?

Maybe they will learn, Maybe they will teach, maybe Trees will start to fly

an inch big? that's pretty big. Moths?

I have no idea what Buddhists think of this but for me faith is a condition, a state of being, and prerequesite to many things, starting with the ability to let go. Without faith, you cling. With it, it's all que sera sera ... And I think maybe faith's evil twin is belief. You can't have both. Belief is doubt and faith is no doubt.

the perfect music for riding out a cyclone, crank it:

that jibes very well with how I perceive this, thank you again. The response you wrote about, maturity and virtue, would you say they're identifying aspects of faith? Do you know what I mean? Can someone who has faith be identified by his maturity and virtue in the way a house painter can be identified by his speckled paper cap, likewise someone who has developed faith will be identifiable through his maturity and virtue the way a house painter is going to end up wearing one of those caps. Another question: Would you expect the people who have arrived at that point to be able to tell others how to reach it? Also, would they even recognize it themsleves? (the house painter no longer applies here, lol) Or, just the opposite, because it's so ingrained, would they not even be aware of it? And therefore not really able to identify it in themselves, in the way the average lifeform on Earth isn't able to describe gravity (I think that's an acccurate metaphor for this, not sure). Thank you for your impressions. Please don't feel under pressure to provide long, intricate answers. I'm just interested in your basic view of this stuff.