freeform

Nothing wrong with it, no. We've all been parasites as little children! What is wrong (imo) is when you make a big deal about inequality, but fail to see that you're causing inequality by being a parasite. This is called ignorance. I call it self-deception. You project that you care about equality - yet you're willing to take more than you give. Robin hood wouldn't be a celebrated character if he took from the rich and kept it all for himself... You know when people say - 'the system is corrupt'... well one's own internal system can also be corrupt... it's corrupted by ignorance, by lying to yourself. The 'Daoist mentality' involves introspection and discernment.

there are parasites everywhere! Yes exactly. I’d also add that your attention is also a vote. Don’t put your attention on stuff you wouldn’t pay for. Some people pirate movies they know they won’t even like. I say it’s better to stop polluting your mind with stuff like that.

That’s how saving money works too. Is characterised by this famous paradox: Would you rather have $1,000,000 or 1 penny that doubles every day for 30 days? — Hopefully you fell for it and went for the big bucks... But if you understood compound interest, you’d know that:

It’s how the Dantien is built... Qi doesn’t want to accumulate - it wants to be used... But generate, seal and ‘fill’ you LDT with just a little and it will begin to attract more Qi... So when you sleep or eat a particularly good meal or take a deep breath - instead of fuelling your next thought or emotion, it may just be drawn down and accumulate in your Dantien. And the accumulation compounds - meaning it grows logarithmically... Thats why a Neigong master can have more Qi than dozens of healthy people put together...

Repairs, gas, road tax, insurance, depreciation, lost income as a result of not having the cost of the car earning income as investment. Your car costs you far more than it’s sticker price. Search “compound interest” to understand the biggest open ‘secret’ to wealth. There’s not much to add. The source of the mightiest rivers is often the tiniest of trickles... Secondly having a savings account with even a tiny amount of money in it, will attract more money. This all parallels generating Qi btw (if you still want a metaphysical slant )

Even if it’s like 5 cents a month? It’s the flow that’s important - not the amount. even a trickle of water from a spring will eventually fill a lake. It’s not my heart - it’s experience. And Texas has the perfect weather for cycling Plus:

You need to save. Even if you have debts. Create a savings account, and direct a percentage of your income into it automatically... do it so that you don’t even see it going out of your account. Set up a standing order so that whatever percentage of your pay check goes into your savings - even if it’s 2%... creating that ‘channel’ for the flow of your money will set you on the right track. Create a plan for covering your debts... a similar, but larger channel must be created to cover that. Use your earning and spending as the levers to increase or decrease the flow of money into these channels. Get rid of your car and cycle instead...

It’s a major one indeed. Some do things that are valuable for other people... some just follow an inner calling. But the most successful people I know are selfless in their work (whether they surrender their ‘self’ to the craft - or to the benefit of their customers or clients) I have a friend who got incredibly good at Japanese style woodwork and furniture-making... it became her passion. Her furniture sells for 10’s of thousands (and some pieces are even 6 figures). And she’s booked for commissions over a year in advance. Money was never important to her - she’s just obsessed with wood and shaping it into form. Near the start of her career she found out about a swampy lake that was drained in Slovakia that contained a number of large oaks that were submerged for thousands of years. They were completely black all the way through - and strong as stone. She had this lumber pulled out, sawn up and dried for many years... at great expense - she sold her flat and lived in her workshop for months to be able to afford that. Years later, when the wood was ready, she created very simple, but beautifully crafted pieces from this wood. She sold out immediately, and has been fully booked ever since. Never advertised or goes for all the industry acclaim. She just constantly travels the world investing her money in lumber. She’s even bought land and planted thousands of oaks for future lumber... 2-300 years in the future. She’s one of the most satisfied and successful people I know. She’s not super rich with many houses and yachts, but has everything she needs and her family is taken care of.

I made a pretty good income at a certain stage. You could say I was rich. Now I’m pretty poor - poorer than the vast majority of my school friends. But I have less problems with money now than I did when I was ‘wealthy’. Making money is simple, but not easy: 1) Do something people find very valuable - and do it really well. 2) Spend less than you earn 3) Make saving an automatic thing. Save 10 to 20% of your income - whatever your income may be. 4) Invest your savings wisely. And that’s it.

If you take your time with what I said, you might get the metaphysical insights you’re looking for... if I told you to be grateful for the incredibly precious opportunity you have - it would just sound like platitudes. If I told you to try and help those less fortunate, you’d probably discount it. And if I told you that seeing things from a new perspective would allow you to move forwards in this... that just sounds like new age silliness. But you chose to take it as ‘boomer quips’... Which, to me at least, reveals the ‘metaphysical explanation’ for why you’re having issues with money. (And your issues of gauging my age )

I think you need to broaden your perspective. You said you did an undergraduate degree... You mentioned that you studied TCM... You have a computer and you have enough time to visit this forum. Just that alone puts you in the top 5% of the world’s population. You have more resources than 95% of the world’s population. There are literally billions of people in the world that would look at your life and give their right arm to have to opportunity to live it. I suggest you take some time to consider this - because it’s so easy to quickly skip over this fact and look to who’s richer than you instead.

If you don’t want to pay - then don’t pay. Take things that are freely given. Particularly if you are exceptionally poor (unable to feed, clothe or house yourself). Charity was designed for exactly such situations. But insisting that someone who charges for their teachings that they shouldn’t be charging - that’s essentially being a parasite - and feeding off that person. If you force someone to give you what they have - that’s called exploitation. Take it from them without asking and that’s called stealing. Nothing is ‘free’... Either the exchange is fair or it’s parasitic. Like a colonial power pillaging a native population for all the value they can extract. Or a mining company destroying an ancient forest because there’s a bit of molybdenum in the subsoil and it’s just there ‘free’ for you to take. If you want to be a parasite then go ahead - you’ll be in good company. But don’t fool yourself with justifications and ignorance. The most insidious thing is when people justify parasitic behaviour as some sort of social justice thing. You talk about equality and all that stuff - but then your self entitlement gets the better of you - surely you deserve to get the things you want but not pay for them. If you only take and don’t give, you’re a parasite. Simple as that. And that’s fine... there are many parasites in nature. Just don’t pretend it’s for some higher cause. That’s just bullshiting yourself. Be a parasite and be proud Years ago I used to download pirated movies - I didn’t care. I justified it by thinking Hollywood makes too much money as it is... But that’s bullshit. There are thousands of people employed to create movies. And most of the movies I prefer aren’t the big Hollywood blockbusters. Eventually I grew up and faced the truth of my actions - I was being a parasite. I was stealing. I don’t need to watch all these movies - these days I rarely watch them... but if I do, then I contribute. Now I prefer to give more than I take - or at least do my best in that endeavour.

Yes - lots of forced breathing as far as I understood. It’s quite common in beginner classes, even drop-in classes.

Some great ideas here.

There are many issues in the world. Let's not try to solve them in a Daoist forum, on a topic discussing discernment.

It's like 10yr old Daoist schools "proving" that they can trace their lineage to the Yellow Emperor or Lao Tzu or some bollocks like that. I hope we can just leave this subject for another time and place (preferably out of my sight! )

The dangerous stuff often makes it into the booty sculpting classes too A friends girlfriend had all sorts of heat issues and ended up having panic attacks at her local yoga studio - and the idiot teacher encouraged it as a sign of kundalini rising

Oh no - please lets not go down that road now!

And in relations to the sidetracked part of this thread: ""Within the indistinct dimness are things, before the separation of the polar attributes (Tai Ji), primal heaven and earth accumulate the true primal unified energy; that which is before Tai Ji is as if it were before the gods." This directly points out that unified single qi of the primal heaven is a thing without shape or form, and that formless can generate form, shapeless can give rise to shape, generating heaven, generating earth, generating man and giving rise to the ten thousand things. If a person can know this, they can break through primal chaos, reverse the qi mechanism, battle with creation, turn around life and death and refine a limitless body of immortality, becoming as indestructible as a diamond. This is just as in the saying "know this, and you know all; with this one thing are ten thousand things accomplished""

"I had no discernment of what was deviant or correct. I would ask anyone and study anything, one day with Wang, another day with Li, a little bit of one then a little bit of something else. Nothing came of this. Then I met a Daoist who taught stillness techniques and he passed on his learning which I practiced assiduously as he instructed. This involved circulating dantian qi, passing the tailbone and coccyx, up the back to Niwan the mud pellet at the top of the head, then down past Mingtang the bright hall at the eyebrows and into Huachi in the mouth. Then descending past Chonglou the layered tower of the trachea into Jianggong the Crimson Palace (i.e. the heart) and gathering the fluids of the heart, finally entering the yellow court of Huangting. As these phenomena manifested I was pleased that I had obtained this effective “medicine,” such that even on a winter’s day I could sit quietly in a desolate place with a body burning like fire and no sensation of cold. I congratulated myself that I had achieved the Dao, and had no need to seek out another teacher. But then I met my first real teacher, the elder Kan Gu..." Liu Yi Ming then goes on to mention meeting teacher after teacher - how with each successive teacher he was able to clarify further the true path to Dao. Sometimes you have to come across something that is truly effective - and even seems complete - then dig deeper. What you thought was achieving the Dao may just be the start...

Much of the meditative path comes to us through the Vedic tradition.

I don’t think it’s an attack - just a bit of mild teasing. I tease Dwai all the time and he teases me back - and it’s all fine... I think it’s good to be able to laugh about anything - especially all this spiritual stuff I’m not sure what you mean here. I don’t believe that’s what I’m saying at all - let me know if I can clarify. But I try to share what I can and what’s potentially helpful for people that’s all. I think if these Arahants are so easily insulted or bored - they’re probably not arahants...

Is that the school that believes spontaneous movements are immortals guiding them? Wouldn't that be nice! Though not for the poor immortal... Imagine finally gaining full liberation - attaining a higher state than even Jesus or Buddha maybe - and then being permanently chained to some curious fellow who decided to go on a woo woo weekend workshop 😅

That certainly sounds like a much better approach than what I’ve seen... Though how to know whether a teacher is indeed realised - or just half-baked? Thank goodness I hopped! Otherwise I could’ve wasted the rest of my life at one of these places. ——— There was a school I came across (from an Indonesian Hindu tradition - but not non-duality) that used zifagong - it was all day every day for 8hrs and chanting the gurus name under your breath while looking at him or his picture... People would get ill, throw up, get blisters, all sorts of quite serious medical issues - and this was all said to be ‘process’ - which meant karma was being worked out through these afflictions... The seniors were all gaunt, drawn, gray and tired... It wasn’t ‘process’ - they were just making themselves ill by perpetuating zifagong. Half right is so much worse than just plain wrong.