Pietro

I would say it is too early for such a definition. I mean. it takes longer than a generation for a tradition to be estabilished in a new land. Now Taoism has already had some story over here, but is still changing very much. We started with how Daoism was brought in, mainly by Christian missionaries who spoke with Confucianists who pretty much said: "yeah you have this big guys 2 thousand years ago, and then the rest is just rubbish." . Then a lot of the people just following their understanding of Daoism, reading a translation of the Tao Te Ching, and making the most they can out of it. And how this weaved in with all the romantic movement. I am here thinking about Thoreau, and people who would equally be inspired by Lao Tzu and Thoreau. And then all this being fully embodied in the movement of the 1968. And then how from 1968 you started having schools slowly moving here. In Canada the Taoist Association. Mantak Chia in America. And a lot of other small school. And of course Bruce has also his place here, as he is bringing a type of Taoism which is quite hard to find on the east. But it has not ended. More and more schools will keep on coming. Look at David Verdesi. We can criticize him as much as we want, but it is true that is making us in touch with a type of Taoism most of us were not even aware. Or Mak Sin Ti. I you just look in those ten years, how the discussion has changed. When this discussion board started we only knew about Mantak CHia, and that was it. China was far away. Now we have often people writing in the board in Chinese, from China. Someone arrives, calls himself a master, a priest, or a disciple of this or that school, and he is telling something, and immediately we can check if what he sais makes any sense or not. Look at how Buddhism changed from India to Tibet to China to Japan. Each country needed a lot to integrate it. ANd the tradition changed. Now we are still discovering the tradition. Then there will be a moment where the western philosophical roots will really start to struggle, play and dance together with the eastern philosophical thought. Right now western philosophers often ignore Taoism. It is not even listed among the major religions. In a university you need to take a course in oriental studies. Until Taoism will not be teached in the west as part of the main philosophical topic, it is too early to look for a definition.

Whoever published the video must be reading us, because now it is possible to comment on it.

oh, just a la carte :-) But Bruce understands human individual differences and never flinched when I was biting some raw, tender, bloody steak. Often eating it with my fingers. (that is using my fingers to eat it, not biting also my fingers!)

Let's look at the murder with firearms pro capita. US:-------------------------------- 0.042802 per 1,000 people Canada: --------------------------0.0149063 per 1,000 people France: --------------------------0.0173272 per 1,000 people Germany: ------------------------0.0116461 per 1,000 people United Kingdom: ---------------0.0140633 per 1,000 people Italy: ----------------------------0.0128393 per 1,000 people Source: 7th UN Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems. So it looks like according to those very old statistics (the only raw data I could find on crimes) the US is on top of all the other G8-western nations in terms of number of firearm murder. (Russia is actually higher, but the point is that the situation in Russia is so different that it is hard to make any comparison) Of course you can claim that correlation does not imply causality, but this is not the point. The point is that there is a correlation, or at least some statistical data show a correlation. And this is enough for some people to genuinely belief that there is a causal relationship. Which is all it takes to prove my point that some people will support gun restriction as a form of prevention against firearm killings. More than this I do not need to go. Regarding firearms in Canada and in Norway, I would claim they fall out of the example, because generally firearms are there used in wild settings. Very different from having a gun in the middle of a city. My understanding is that also in Canada and in Norway you are not allowed to carry a gun in the middle of a city, say Toronto, with the same lightness that you have in carrying it in the US.

Thanks Yoda, but beef is my most eaten type of meat. It's just the easiest to find at the quality that I need to eat it raw. Beside I feel I would be doing a disservice toward goats, if I were to discriminate them so badly. Thanks for the clarification, I will wait until Bruce opens up his teachings to this side too.

but true

because I was too busy. I have a talk in 3 hours, a work meeting before, one after. And this morning I passed part of it on the phone with a friend whose father blew up his head just because they had a loaded gun in their house. Please start digging up those statistics. I will join you in the next days.

Guns are not legal in many countries, and where they are legal the number of people dying because of them is much higher. You might agree or not that guns should be legal, but you have to admit that the argument against having guns for free is a valid one. Here is the same. You might not agree, you might think there are other reasons as well. But to speak about the true reason is childish.

hehe, I think he teases me along the lines that I am more interested in being a Taoist than in being enlightened. (or immortal, or a real human being, or whatever)

There is a technique in Taoism called packing. I think it is traditionally transmitted inside the wu style tai ji discipleship. It is not taught traditinally in the open. Mantak Chia came to know it, and taught it freely. By the way Mantak Chia is such kind of guy, he does not keep secrets. Now the technique (which you can also find in his book) helps to make a person's body stronger. As a side effect it also helps a person to be more detached from his emotions. This is generally not taught by Mantak Chia. (Yes Mantak Chia puts a lot of caveat in his books, on how some techniques can be dangerous, and you should not learn this from books, and so on. The fact that this technique had this side effect was not told. Not in the teachers training for the instructors. I know, I was there, and I tested people years later). Traditionally the technique was used before going to war, so you could be detached from your emotions, not fall into a shock when you killed someone, and keep on fighting. It was a very important technique, as it would raise the probability that you would come back all in one piece. And then, once you were back, you would be treated. The emotions released, the shock absorbed, the blockages dissolved. All things which are easier to be done when you are alive... Now what happens when you give this technique to a person who passes his life in front of a computer? He does it to detach from his frustration, suppress it, keep going... until he falls ill, or explodes. This is a technique that has little or no use in our modern world. But it still needs to be preserved, for in another time it might be really important (not so much time from now, if the situation continues as we are seeing). This brings up the concept of lineage master. Lineage masters are people who are not just masters, but they have been given the full set of techniques of a tradition. Which also include the techniques that are not being taught for similar reasons. They have the responsibility to pass this knowledge to the next generations. In a way that it would arrive intact 7 generations from now. That's long term thinking. Now, of course, it would be possible to teach it if the teacher had the possibility to go into all the details, and explain why, when to do it, and what to do if something go wrong, and how to change the technique according to the person. And this is the way instructors and disciples are being taught in serious schools. But it takes a long time. And not everybody has the time. And not everybody would be able to learn it. (Some teachings are actually hard to learn). Also, as I mentioned earlier, some techniques can be really dangerous for some people. Can make them go crazy. Sometimes it would be possible for those people to do those techniques if they are being supervised. And even maybe restrained at times, to avoid them harming themselves. So again we are hitting the wall of scarcity of resources. Think if you wanted to use inner dissolving to help a person who has schizophrenia. You need a teacher who is really good in that technique, and the adequate facilities (monastery, hospital), with strong people around the schizophrenic person all the time. Before you can try to teach that technique to such person. In short some techniques are dangerous. Some people are ill. When you teach everything out in the open, you are getting the most dangerous technique in the hands of the most ill person. Would you give a loaded gun in the hands of a young kid? Who is affected by depression?

Great Review! Very complete. I met the guy, and think your review is quite precise. Let's not forget that the term "Yoga" is being used in Taoism for commercial reasons. It is an Indian term. Now I do not know if Yoda suggestion was for an authenthic Yoga site of for a Chinese Yoga site. But Sherab is correct in refusing something based on the fact that it could come from a different background. Yoga and Taoism use the energy according to very different principles. Btw, there was a geeral review about Taoist Yoga in the book section. As I remember the geeral position was not exactly "nice book"... hehe. You know if it wasn't for the meat vow, I would have been tempted myself. The problem is that I consider meat to be healthy. And I consider health to have a general priority over ethics (within reason, of course). After all we evolved eating meat. But the fact of having an altar must be really good. Bruce does speak sometimes about Taoist ethics and how to find out what you should or shouldn't do. He does not go inside the altar business much. The best you can get (and it is really good), is when you are present at one of his night meditations. Where he acts in his taoist priest role. Actually my instructor (Alan) teases me a lot about my "secret" desire to be part of a Taoist group.

I think the line now goes: who are you going to believe? Me or your own eyes? Btw, nice forum, too bad I was never admitted.

Please come and say hi to one of the founders of this forum. He is a legend in its own right. http://www.thetaobums.com/Hello-do-you-eve...hit-t12257.html That multiple people over here have been missing. He knows a lot. But you need to decypher what he says. Some time ago Ron was banished, but times heal everything, and I hope he can stay with us for some time. Pietro P.S. if he ever offers you to have a game of chess, and sends you a link to the board... do not use the password you currently use in the Forum. Just don't .

Nice poll, well thought out. COvers all the possibilities. Tao Meow, some of the possibilities are mutually exclusive, but since getting the macrocosmic orbit will get you the mco there is an option macrocosmic+kundalini. Next poll: who have you opened?

Yeah, me too! Who are the other two I wonder. Max, you know anything about it?

I know it is him. I just can feel it. The self pity style, while being offensive. Plus he knows the references. Beside he also just sent me a mail from his email address. The impostor should have hacked his gmail address.

ACtually I need to retract. ROnnie just sent me a couple of messages explaining in no uncertain terms ( ) that he is not behind what has been going on

"Neikung", I don't care. What people say to each other in PM is their stupendous business. They can say anything they want. They can defamate, blame, whisper, share links. Anything they want. They even can say bad things about me. I don't care either. If in PM Rick Funaki (Is this his name, right?) gave your a link to his own webpage it is your business if you follow it or not. If he enters in your computer via a backdoor that is punishable. Not by the moderators here (because their job is different), but by the law. The moderators here just need to comply to the law, and if the law comes to them, and asks for the logs, they should provide them. This is as far as they can, and should, go. Regarding what crazy theory Funaki has in his mind, this is not my business either. I have so far heard people who really believed that just by concentrating they could change the quantum entanglement of particles in the universe, so that they could achieve what they were dreaming off. And people were telling it with a straight face. People believeing that the universe does not exist, or that they are immortal. And you are telling me that what this guy did was childish?! But you know what: Rfunaki had a theory. And instead of just cudling it, he tried to test it. Maybe the test was not good enough, but at least he did something with that. In this he is well over the shoulders of all of the guys around here who believe things, and just try to convince others. He tried to look for clarifications. Now considering that this board has an history of doppleganger activity, considering that one of our members is missing; and someone who is well known for playing this kind of tricks. Then I compliment his job. And then considering that his theory does not involve the word quantum, nor emptyness, nor does it claim that reality is just a frigment of his cats imagination... considering all this, I would not call his theory necessarily wrong. I don't know if some of those people are actually one. But I am impressed by the kind of work this guy went on to do to test his theory. And I consider that the trail of slime information that is released when you go around the web is up for grab. Putting cookies might not be ok. But it is legally accepted, so amen. Entering into another people's computer is definitely not ok. But sending you a link and then reading your IP is absolutely acceptable. Do you think webmasters all around the world don't do it? And no explenation is even necessary from my point of view. He could have done it just to test if there are more people with 1 or 3s in their IP address. So from my point of view, what he did was a fair use of his limited time on this wonderful earth.

I am thinking about writing a book

HI Craig, PM answered. Feel free to share our full exchange. Pietro

RFunaki, nice job. This forum has an history of doppleganger activity. Maybe it is because people want to experiment with different personalities, maybe because they topic are somehow dangerous or tabu. It all started long time ago, more than 10 years ago. At the time Eric, one of Mantak Chia senior instructor was the star of the forum. The only other people who are here now where me, Max, Plato, Trip. I am not sure if Craig, who just posted in this thread, was at the time among us. Eric would sign with the signature Senior Instructor. One person refused to submit to this subtle sign of authority, and started taking the piss of him. At the time there was no log in, in the forum. The forum was simply a board where we wrote stuff, and signed. Anyone could sign with other names. A person started to sign with different names. Often names of people who were already there. You would go to the board, and find a post in your name, saying things you did not agree. Generally offensive. It was always so obvious that we all knew that the person writing was not the usual person. So it was not a big deal, back then. Along the years we tried to gather information abut this person, and generally failed. At some point he crossed a first line, offended an user, this user declared he was not going to post again until log in where introduced. This is when James introduced log in in the forum. Eric was really angry with this guy, and accused Max and Plato to be behind him. This guy posted in many forms, and shape, but he was undeniably the same person. With time he got better. He would learn a person style, and try to copy it. Some of the most funny posts over the year were from this very guy. At some point he crossed another line, and offended (to the point of wounding) one of the members. Thsi guy was quite young, and replied from the heart. As a result this guy, in his words, suddenly "became good". He took a name, and wrote mostly with that name. He would still from time to time write with other names, but now he had a name. We could refer to him. His name was Ron. Inspired from Ron Jeremy. We called him also Ronnie, Ronnie boy, Al-Salami, papi, Ronnie Tzu, and many other names. In some sense he was a riot. Quite litterally :-). When the forum breaked up, and we decided to start our new forum, with the whole community, he was the guy who suggested the name "TaoBum". Inspired from the Dharma Bum (I think). By that time we all had email address of each other. Sean set up this forum, we moved here. Later we (mostly me) accused Sean of having taken over the forum, and split over. It was me, Max, Plato, Ron, Trip and Smile (not Smile-Max that posts here). The forum was a failure. Ron and Plato kept on using it to put pornography. In the meantime Ron would come here making fun of Sean and of his girlfriend. Eventually he crossed another line over here too, and Ron was banished from this forum. You can still find his posts in the pit. Of course you can banish a username, but not a user. As the forum was a failure, me, Max and Plato, one by one, came back. Trip was the only who never came back. And Smile neither. This user, the doppleganger, would always use proxy. I mean, all the time. Even after having discussed many things through email, and having set up multiple forums together, he would still always use a proxy. One time he was travelling in Europe, and Trip (which would by the time play chess with him daily), invited him to visit him in Zurich. He thought about it for a couple of days, and refused. So after having banished Ron, we are somehow to the point where we started: There is a doppleganger in this forum. This is not really news, isn't it? RFunaki, one question, if those people are the same people, why would the same person follow the same link two times? Doesn't the fact that he has followed the link to times imply that it was two different persons?

Craig, Moderators, we never had such rule neither on this forum or on any previous version of this forum. In no way are moderator allowed to gather informations about individual users by sending them to external links, while normal users are not allowed to do this. Please reconsider. Pietro

please, everybody, remember that we change our aesthethic perceptions of the world to fit what we cannot modify. If a person has studied with David, he is more prone to change his valutation to say that it was worth. This unless the situation was so bad that he just cannot see it in that way. In instead the person decides not to work with David, once the occasion has passed, he will change his evaluation so that he will see his decision as the correct one. Again unless the situation is so unbalanced that he really cannot do that. As a result it is common that we find here people who have participated and people who have not participated in those course disagree strongly. Not just on what wes done at the course (after all who was not there cannot tell), but on all the information and facts that would lead a person to study or not study with David. Said that, regarding David and his PhD. When the story of the PhD came to this board there was a lot of people asking to see it, and asking if it was true or not. Eventually someone asked him, and told that he did have a PhD. I don't have the time right now, but maybe someone can pull out that old thread. Again respect to the person that said that people that criticised David were only people who never met him, this is also false. Ramon has explained us that he was a friend of david and di several courses with him.

Hello Serene Blue. It looks like you are proceeding quite fast. I have just read your post, and I have something to add. Are you sure about the practice of taking away sick chi from glands and storing it in the LDD? I wouldn't do it. Instead may I suggest to ground it to the earth. Maybe dissolve it. The energy dissolved should then join the energy in your aura. But sending it straight to the LDD seem like the formula to get really bad illness later on. second, speaking about anal sex, in anal sex you can easily suck the energy out of your partner LDD pretty much directly. Which would be another reason not to store sick chi there. Generally, to have orgasms, have you considered following witch advice on the diet? She has a book out there called Orgasmic Diet. I think you should give it a try.

funny that I end up defending David. Oh well... I think another possibility is that since he has been willing to travel all around the world, and live wherever the teachers where, and just be a sponge, he could learn more rapidly. Plus of course most teachings have many elements in common, so when you meet the next teacher you do not need to relearn the basics. Just a possibility, I don't really know. Pietro