Pietro

First thing first: cells in petri dish live do not live the same length of time as cells inside the body. So you shouldn't compare the two. Said that I don't remember which one live longer. I have pines just over here. I am very interested in finding all sort of ways to use them. How do I prepare the pine pollen? I go up to a pine and then what? ( ♪ ♫ I'm absolute beginner ♪ ♫ )

which box?

You know, I am a lazy bastard. I just hate doing the work 2 or 3 times. SO I'd rather do it one time, than do it over and over for each continent/nation/ragion/city etc. I doubt there are many people in the whole world that could. Many sects are secret. This is how they managed to suvive through the centuries without being the dominant religion. What we could achieve is a list of the open and official entry points. The open sects, the one that advertise, that are not secret. BTW, sometime you also have secret sects that has the same name of a non secret sect. Same name, different people, different practices. Makes your head spiiiiin.

Wow, and you call that a "small" contribution. What are you going to do when you make a major one? Re-Write the Dao Canon? Something that came to me while I was driving and thinking about your site. Is it wise to divide the school sections by countries? Internet is inherently international, and the big teachers often teach in different countries. In fact I would say it is easier for someone to teach in the US and in Europe more than teaching in any other two continents. That's because Europe and the EU has actually so much in common culturally (and even more now with your new president ). Maybe it would make more sense to have a page by language. You know teachers that teach in English, or in Chinese, or in German, or in Spanish, etc. But what really would be cool to have is a list of all schools, then a google map page. Maybe (I don't know if it is possible easy to do) with the list of schools on the left, as a set of check boxes, and then the school appearing in the map once you check them. Anyone played with google maps before? In any case it feels a bit weird to have a single nation. Please let me know if we should set up a page for the EU, or for each nation. Fair enough, Ok, I'll do this edit, but com'on join us on the field and change the page yourself. Hey, it's a wiki!

Funny enough if I remember well the Schipper's Taoist Body, there is an issue of possession even inside Taoism. There are Taoists that use disembodied entitied (read anything from Ghost to Demons to Angel), and other Taoists that are critic to those practices. It is a bit like someone becomes a Christian, and people would be afrait he would become a satanist. Now matter of fact a christian is much nearer to become a satanist than a non christian. At least a Christian believes there is satan. IT's going in that direction. Every tradition is very wide and complex, and includes in it all sort of perversions. Once you have Christians you also have satanists. Once you have Taoists you also have taoist-vampires. It's kind of part of the package. A friend of mine just avoided all of this by simply not discussing all this with his family. If they asked what she was doing she would answer: kung fu. And since kung fu is good for the body and good for self defence they would not bother her. Now Tai Chi is good for the body, so this is another option.

I don't know, Stig. Fact is that in the troubled story of this forum, me, Max, Plato and others have repreatedly tried to get another forum up because we were unhappy with the way Sean managed this. We never suceeded. Getting a forum up is not an easy task. You need to get people to go there, and insert their content, and it need to be interesting content that they are not writing anywhere else. If someone writes a post here and in your forum, the people will read it here. Because this place is already well known. On google this place appears much higher than any new forum. In short you are competing from a disadvantaged position. The only time I saw forum sucessfully sprout out was when either there was a community already well defined that wanted to talk to each other (this is how this forum started), or there was a school that wanted a place to talk (this is how the HT forum started, but also the Kun Lun one), or there is something technically so different that using that forum is really a different experience. I think you have essentially two options. You either do like Keith, who made his own site, and eventually invited people here and there to contribute with an article. Or you need to build a community. If you need to build a community you need to realise that the community is your biggest asset. On the net there have been websites that has been sold for millions of dollars just for their community. Websites that were technically extremely easy to build. And yet they were sold for their content, and the community that generated that content. Think about wikipedia, delicious, livejournal, flickr just to name a few. All except wikipedia has been sold for a lot of money. ANd all (except flickr) are running on software that is open source (that software or a copy of it). So you need to understand that your biggest assett are the people. Each person that participates is a treasure. Not just because of what he does, but because of how what he does can attract other people. No one really cares what Stig or Pietro or Max or Plato or any of us knows. But put us all together, and you have made a huge website, that can attract hundred of thousand of people. So my take is that you should not start with your forum, because getting your forum up will be a major challenge in itself. And not a challenge that I will bet on you winning (sorry), despite your very valiant effort. Instead you should use this very forum, as your forum. MAke the Tao Wiki the wiki of the Tao Bums. Who cares if it is not your forum, as long as it provides people who are willing to pour their knowledge in the wiki, the wiki will grow. Once the wiki is up, and running, and independent, then if you want, you can start another forum. Remember that people who write in a wiki are different from the ones that write in a forum. Just like some people would rather use a motorbike and others a car. So some people will move to the wiki, and like it, and start going there more than coming here. While others will do the opposite once your place raises in google enough to attract people. Now since you are in need of people you want to make it as easy as possible for people to insert information. Remember every difficulty you place will half the number of people using your wiki. Do they need to register? Half. Do they need to receive an email? Half. Do you need to approve them? Half. Good websites are able to make you register without even noticing. While you are writing something else, they just ask, "oh by the way, what is your name?". Then they ask for a password. And so on. This is how important it is not to scare people off. Stack overflow is an example of this. And then there is an editorial choise, and this is hard. What are you going to accept in your wiki? In wikipedia there is the mythology of the neutral point of view, which is quite ok, most of the time. In a wiki of one school, you can follow what the teacher sais. But in a wiki of all of taoism what are you going to follow? It's not an easy decision, and you are going to think about it, because if your wiki suceed, and I really hope it does, you will soon have edit wars between people believing into this or into that. Maybe you can let the wiki community decide it themselves. There are ways in which wiki-users can suggest things, and vote them up or down. So those are my suggestions: open it up, untie it respect to the forum, accept every help that you can get. Of course doing this will attract also spam. At the beginning it will be your job to weed that out, and to upload all sort of defences against spam. How does this sound? Pietro Yes thanks. The email is not working but for the rest it is fine. I also started working of a first draft of a page on Bruce. I should answer this separately. This is a technical issue. It is possible IFF (if and only if) the forum is totally tied with the wiki. Not just that people have the same username, but that each page of the wiki has a link to a page of the forum, and viceversa. There are spftware that do this, but for what I know mediawiki does not offer this service. But I don't know the diverse and wide world of the wikimedia plugins. Maybe you can find one that let you do just that. But unless you have sorted out the technical part do not expect people to follow your wishes if it is more confortable doing otherwise.

I remember a friend's friend. They were both doing Kung Fu. nd then this guy was converted by some Genova Witness. They told him that meditation was bad because while it emptied the mind, then all sort of demons fills it. Hmm. I think the truth is that meditation is not good or bad, but an instrument. And is a very powerful and precise instrument. And as every instrument it can be used well or badly. Years ago we had a member of the board who would use martial arts to get strong, and then throw away the energy (sex? I don't remember). So he was using the same tools, but instead of using them to become stronger and healthier he was using them to have fun, and as a side effect becoming weaker and weaker. Essentially he was worse of than if he did not know the practices. He was tapping into his deep jing... just to explode it faster. But then the same practice can be used to make someone healthier. SO I think you will not find definit words about meditation in either direction, because the truth is not black and white. But you could try to a.) get your friend to admit that meditation can help under the right circumstances. b.) a good teacher should be able to distinguish the how the what and the when of the meditations to have desirable effects once those pillars are in place you can build on them. FOr example you can ask them to pray for you so that you develop Discernment. Discernment as the ability to distinguish good versus bad. So that you may use your meditation toward a common good. Find meditation teachers that they respect, and that you respect as well. There are also some beautiful Christian meditations. I think right now at Ignazio da Loyla, Santa Teresa D'Avila, and many others. They are more contemplations, and churning. But there is definitly a christian path. A path not grounded in believing but in meditating, and helping others. Maybe you could find some common ground over there.

Sorry Stig, I am lost. Must be the portuguese hot weather is boiling my brain. I never was very smart and this is really taking away the last synapses. I am happy to see that you want me to invite them, but I don't understand the terms under which I should do it. You say that they are welcome, and you refer to a page, but the page says that they need to be (dao dao dao / dao dao dao dao dao dao dao) in your forum. And if I don't get it, the email will be confused. What should I tell them: a) that they need to join the forum, become (dao dao dao / dao dao dao dao dao dao dao) and then they can have editing right? (I already tell you, they will never do that, and I will lose the possibility to invite them once the time is ripe, I would rather wait until the wiki is more developed and you can let them in properly) that they can directly join the wiki and you will give them the possibility to edit the pages. You see it is hard to get a person to follow a link it is harder to get them to register it is harder to getthem to register and then come back later but to register, then walk around the site for some time before coming back is impossible. The only one that managed to do that was the seduction.fast community, but they had the mighty sacred power of the pussy behind them. And we know that pulls more than a cart of ox (italian saying). Also even them used that procedure only once the community was estabilished. So please let me know if they can come now (and edit now), or they should wait. Pietro

Should I invite my energy arts friends? I know several on facebook. And maybe they could help. Probably if I send a mail around, 2 or 3 might participate in the project. This would be good for the TaoWiki, but the risk is that a single school dominates the wiki, dominating common resources like "tai chi", and similar. Of course if I invite them they would need to have editing priviledges. I cannot invite people to participate in a project, and then refuse them the power to play along. Let me know, Pietro

Hmm, it's probably due to the fact that I am in Portugal, with the time of portugal. There are weird things happening, where you send a mail, and with the mail it comes when was it supposed to arrive. And mail system would not accept a mail that has been sent in the future, because this is what often spam would do (to appear as the first mail for a long time). But I don't have this problem with any other system. Not even with any other mediawiki system. So I am surprised, too. But you should look into it, as if this means that Europeans (and Asians) would have a hard time in participating fully could be a problem

I agree. But in a general way the point is not about pleasing. Not about pleasing yourself, not about pleasing others. Simply it's not about pleasing.

Hi Stig, I am getting a problem with the email: TaoWiki could not send your confirmation mail. Please check your e-mail address for invalid characters. Mailer returned: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Chicago' for '-5.0/DST' instead

well, if it's a wiki it should not be needed. Each person should be able to add its own brand of taoism. That's how they work, and why they are so efficient.

It is very nice. And I keep on thinking there should be one page for every school (or even for every major teacher), and one page fr every subtradition. And then we should play "guess who inherited from who" between the pages of the first type and the pages of the second type.

Hi Michael, I suspect Stigweard must be working hard to reach the deadline. I think we'll find out soon enough the answer to those questions ;-). Regards, Pietro

duality is a false duality ;-) And this list is a false octality :-P Still... I guess I am a semantic. By the way: Love and do what you will is from Augustine.

How interesting! How does this happens? When you are young you feel immortal (few or none of your friends have died, you often have no serious illness or signs of age), if you are smart you will compare yourself with the average 20 something guy whose interest dont go much farther than sport and videogames. And you compare them on your chosen field (like, you like Taoism, and you know much more about Taoism than them). You also have those great intuitions that no one seem to be able to understand. Later in life you start to age, your faculties are not as bright. And the more you were bright, the sooner you can feel this starting to happen. On average mathematicians reach their peak at 25. People who study physics at 30. One example, Einstein was 26 when he published the special relativity. Also as time gores by you know more and more people of your field. People who have similar interest. Now you are really competing with peers. And is harder. But what makes it really harder is that you start to look at the people who made up this civilization. The immortal names that we all know. You might even know one or two by that time. And believe me, it's harder to feel a genius respect to them. But then you say: I am lost. Can you explain me when (and why) does this happens. Many thanks, Pietro

Interestingly enough it is quite common for young people to be touched. Have an important intuition. And then pass the rest of their life working on it. Just don't assume you are always going to feel that way. It's easy to feel a genius in your twenties (just guessing by the fact you speak about your "one of my philosophy professors"), it's harder down the line. ;-)

I wonder how we could integrate it with your new project. Maybe we could use some wiki pages to put the info together. What we really need is *gasp* a table. With on the colums the schools, and on the rows the charatteristics. It could also have some practical applications, like pointing to people to the right teacher for them. I would also add * Water School of Taoism (this comes in two versions, Lao Tzu and Chauang Tzu). * Alchemical Taoism (a la Mantak Chia) (but maybe this is one of the ones above, eventually we should find out) * New Age Taoism (just read the TTC, and u r a taoist bro') (is that Popular Western Taoism). * The Guy that makes all the Fu, * Falun Gong (yes we need to put them too) * Chan * Zen the various religious taoism, like the ones that believe that Lao Tzu was a deity. Yes, done well is a major project. But we will learn a lot in the process. We could even set up a few questions in a nice format, and send them to some academic explaining what we are doing. If we do it with 3 academics, and 2 agree on the answer, we can use that answer. BTW, I am really looking forward of you setting up a wiki. You know, long time ago I tried a lot to have a wiki here. I set up two wiki in different times, but they never flew, and I was not interested to put the time in it. Maybe the community is mature for this now.

1. Theravada Buddhism (100%) 2. Unitarian Universalism (95%) 3. Mahayana Buddhism (84%) 4. Liberal Quakers (72%) 5. Neo-Pagan (69%) 6. New Age (69%) 7. Taoism (68%) 8. Secular Humanism (61%) 9. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (56%) 10. Hinduism (55%) 11. Jainism (55%) 12. New Thought (52%) 13. Nontheist (50%) 14. Orthodox Quaker (46%) 15. Scientology (43%) 16. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (42%) 17. Sikhism (41%) 18. Reform Judaism (34%) 19. Baha'i Faith (33%) 20. Orthodox Judaism (19%) 21. Seventh Day Adventist (18%) 22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (15%) 23. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (13%) 24. Islam (7%) 25. Jehovah's Witness (3%) 26. Eastern Orthodox (2%) 27. Roman Catholic (2%) I like how low am I on Roman Catholic. Thinking I was educated there tells us something about our educational system. I am not sure what Unitarian Universalism, is. Also some questions are very superficial. Look at this: Q11. Doing good works (deeds) and acting compassionately is: Necessary. Not necessary. Not Applicable. What about, a natural outcome of a more refined internal state I suspect I should click under "Not necessary". But, Yeah, also their view about taoism was very superficial. I wonder if we, as a community, could do better. FIrst of all we could start to list all the type of taoism we know of. And we know many. And then we could make a quiz to see what kind of taoist is the responder. We could make it on Hunch.com. I think it would be a great project, that would clarify a lot to us as a community. And the result would then be something that everybody can use. What do you think of that?

Thanks Mal, for reviving this thread .

You must be joking: JL is Juan Li! I would also add JQS, MW & the DM.

Thanks Sloppy Zhang! Yes, LDD= Lower Dan Tien MDD= Middle Tan Tien UDD= Upper Dan Tien TTC= Tao Te CHing CT= Chuang Tzu PU= Pick Up IC= I Ching K&L= Kan & Li And Bruce is indeed Bruce Frantzis.