Pietro

All this is very interesting indeed. (especially since he is in Spain, I could go and visit him in a week end trip ) What do our resident bums say about it. For example people like YMWong, who were so critical to our previous guest, saying that he was not a real taoist priest. Is this one ok instead?

Let me start by saying that when people speak about Fire or Water they mostly make a confusion. People think a practice is a Fire practice, or Water practice depending what kind of practice it is. As if there was something inerently different in one kind of practice than in the other. And in a sense there is, and so the people are right. But also there isn't because as it has been pointed out multiple times there is actually a continuous of practices with many practices in between. And the same practice being in different places depending on the modus operandi on which it is done. So, what I want to explain here is that the division is not so much a modal division, but an historical, traditional division. It has more to do with traditions, and sub traditions, than with practices. And of course each tradition has specific practices, and they fit in different ways. And some times the very same practice is being used in different traditions, in different ways. What would you say, for example, if I say that there are fire traditions that use the Inner Dissolving. So the difference is more historical, but it is a fundamental difference. The water tradition is an old form of taoism, it comes from Lao Tzu (and Chuang Tzu). The Fire tradition is a more recent form of taoism. It is older than what is it normally called neo-taoism. As generally neo-taoism is considered being started around the year 900-1000. Instead this form of taoism started when Buddhism started arriving in China. I don't know exactly the dates, but an educated guess would say that around year 600 it probably was alread well on its way. So in a sense the whole neo-taoist is all fire tradition. But I am pretty sure that if you really looked close you cannot say that historically all the fire traditions are also neo taoist. For example some of the alchemical stuff was surely fire tradition. But were them neo taoist? (Note the neo taoism is considered to come from the merging of buddhism, confucianism with taoism). This alchemical taoism was coming from the merging of taoism with buddhism. It's a bit like making bread. You take taoism. You mix it a bit. Then you add some buddhism, and you get alchemical taoism (which is already called a fire form of taoism). Then you keep on mixing this, and then you add some more buddhism and confucianism, and you get neo taoism (Which you still call a fire tradition of taoism, i.e. a non pure form of taoism). You mix it, fold it some more. Then you add some more buddhism, and you get Ch'an Buddhism. And then you put it aside, like in Japan, let it rest, take away all the parts that hasn't mixed well, and you get zen buddhism. It's nothing difficult, it's just like bread. The water tradition has a connection with philosophical concepts like spring, and water, and light green, and everything that is small and full of life. In short is the kind of taoism we have learned from reading chuang tzu. But have you ever noticed how many people read lao tzu, read chuang tzu, and then do the taoist practice and wonder: what has this to do with that? Now don't think that there is a war between those two types of traditions. The water traditions tend to be less well known. This generation we are having this wonderful gift of a person who is fully trained and who is permitted to teach. But this is a rare event even for the millenial tradition of original taoism. But for example there is (at least) another practitioner around here (Taoemaw) who is claiming to be learning from a water tradition, but she never released the name of her teacher. For the rest you have mostly fire schools. Those are great schools, nothing to say about them. And of course in those years there probably was a dialogue between those traditions. As we said, the same practice is sometimes present in both. But often either the modus operandi is different, or the goal is different, or just the context. If you had to put your hand into what really distinguishes a water tradition practice respect to a non water tradition practice, is not the actual practice, but the 70% rule. A water tradition practice always follows the 70% rule. And to answer Scotty, no the division water fire, in this context, is not part of a 5 element division. That also was a great cause of confusion, where people did not know about this division, and so made an educated guess which was unfortunately wrong. Said all this, I fell in love with taoism when I was 16. I started practicing the fire traditions. But I really was looking for something else. When I found Bruce I was very happy to have found someone who was really teaching that form of taoism I have always been looking for. SO it was not a choise from my point of view, but more a form of recognition. I could not go back and do fire taoism more than I could go back and do the Ave Maria. Of course some practices which I have integrated with me while doing the fire traditions are with me, and will always be with me. EDIT: added a couple of paragraphs.

Hi Ramon, no reason to be sorry about. I think Planochigung put it more clearly. Just stand and dissolve, and work on your breathing. Actually do only one of those two at the time, for now. We'll work on how to integrate stuff after. The reason you did not understand have more to do with experience (and lack of), tha with reasoning. When we say you need to get the basic, this is not to just dissolve stuff at this level, but also to have the clarity and discernment to be able to distinguishing in the sea of sensations that you receive what is what. If money is the problem, but travelling is not, and you are / can come to Europe, you could come to Portugal this summer. I just bought a house, as I always wanted to make a taoist community. The house is pretty big, but it needs a LOT of work. So this summer I am inviting students and friends to come and help with the renovation. Provided you are willing to do your share of work, I am more than happy in the morning to teach you what I know. I am certified both from Mantak Chia and from Bruce, and I can possibly give you a good start. (The offer is more general, if anyone is interested please contact me. My only requirement is that we try to keep it as a community focused in taoism. Just because there are many communities around the world, but I haven't found a single one focused on Taoism! I should make a thread about it soon.)

Hi Tyler, honestly Bruce isn't charging that much. He charges 800 euro for 5 days. But then with the material from those 5 days you go on for at least a year. So you should spread the cost over the 12 months. That's 100 euro for 45 days of your personal practice. That's not so bad. Yes, you can go to a lot of other course that will ask only for 2 or 3 hundreds. But then how soon have you unpacked everything, and are you hungry again? For me I have gone to the teacher instructor now in Brighton, and the next is the one in Crete next year. I am jumping all the others. As you (and nearly everybody else), I have limited resources, and need to focus on what I am ready to take. snowmonki, thanks for the tip about the nervous system. I didn't realise that that was what was going on. Ramon, reading what you say, you claim to be able to feel blockages inside of you. And it seem that you have dissolved up to a certain point. It is quite common to get some part of it, but not complete it. My suggestion would be to stand, and dissolve. Once you hit those parts that you feel unintegrated you might want to try to do the water to gas part. You need to clear your energetic layers before working on the deeper side. First of all because you need the clarity that comes from the hours of practice, and second because by having dissolved on the energetic level it will be easier for you to dissolve at the others. (It's a bit like a blocked pipe, you want to start releasing it from the bottom. You release it from the middle and the energy might not go anywhere, and will freeze again). I agree that the ability to work with a book is dependent on the person. It's just that there are more people who think they can work with a book then people who can actually work with a book. In any case, at least get the CD. Why do you say that it is not possible for you to work with Bruce?

First of all I do agree that inner dissolving and Inner smile are very different. But they alse are part of very different taoist lineages. The neo taoist alchemical lineage and the water lao tzu lineage are very different. The first is trying to transform, and the second is trying to dissolve. As such you are right that they use totally different methods. But I think historically one came from the other (or as biologists would say, they both came from a common ancestor). The problem is that "A taoist only rides one horse at a time"[bruce, 2001 circe, personal comunication]. You want your practice to be complete, but you don't necessarily want to have competing practices, or practices that are going through very different routes to reach the same goal. So I stated better to do the ID than the IS. But now we seem to have a second problem: can you do the inner dissolving? Because if all you got is a book then you might be having some difficulties. The inner dissolving is not an easy meditation. In the best of the possible worlds you would learn it while getting the transmission, directly from the teacher, after having done outer dissolving for 1-3 years. Which also you would have learned under a teacher supervision. So here is my next question, how good are you with outer dissolving? Have you learned that at all? Because if you only have a book about that, then you have a second difficulty on top of the first. And finally my last question, how much do you need now the inner dissolving? Are you right now in a terrible place where your inside are being tortured out of regret, or deep grief, or something similar? Because if you are just a happy chap who is going through life, I think you would be better for now to avoid inner dissolving, learn well the outer dissolving. By all means, play with the inner dissolving, and follow the instructions of the book, but don't invest any serious amount of time in that. And then keep an eye on Bruce courses. A 5 day course of bruce on the inner dissolving (anything that have the word meditation inside, usually will do, but do make sure they do teach the inner dissolving) is a good place to start. If on the other hand you are tortured by anguish & inner demon, then you might be able to go straight to the inner dissolving (you lucky guy ;-) ) simply because your blockages are so awaken at the moment that you just can't miss them. But again, having a teacher would really help. At least look for a normal instructor next to you, and ask him to help you. Actually thinking about it better, the Inner dissolving is so much deeper than the inner smile that you can compare it more to fusion than with the inner smile. But then the IS would compare with OD. If you are going to go with the book way to ID, you might want to check the CD sections in Bruce website. He has some CD on taoist meditation. They are really pretty good. Oh yes, next summer (2010), in Crete he is holding a teachers training on taoist breathing. That's also a good place to go. You know, what really the inner smile can relate to? What's alive and what's dead. There is this practice in the water method where you go through your body and you awaken it bit by bit by just trying to see if you can feel it. Now doing the inner smile properly, where you feel the organs, as opposed to visualise them, is bound to help you in this way. ANd this is a prerequisite before doing the more advanced stuff.

I think the inner dissolving is how the inner smile should be done properly. With no charge at all, no smile, just releasing into neutral space. I would not suggest you to do both, as they are really similar, and why should you spend time with the IS if you are also doing the ID. Instead you should do something different. Something moving, or standing. Taoists use to walk the circle or do tai ji, and then sit, and then move again, and then sit, and so on. If you want to keep few practices you should chose them well, and different.

This is not correct. Masters are human beings and definitly vulnerable. If you want to say that a master is stronger than a student, and we should protect the student more than the master, ok. But the phrase, by itself, is false.

Let me start by saying that I haven't had a 1000 women, although I surely desired them, so I cannot say how it is to be over it. I am not sure how deep does the illusion go, and what is illusion and what is not. Some delusional states we have all been in, when we were teenagers, are obviously dead end roada. And I will agree that marriage is not all wrong. But then there is a huge grey area in between where I have a hard time in discerning what is real and what is an illusion. Gandhi in his comment on the bhagavad gita speaks about the depth of Arjuna ignorance for distinguishing between killing relatives and other people. Maybe the illusion is this search that there is a person that will complete us. I honestly don't know. But there is a big trap that I have seen, experienced and witnessed. It is very common for people to say: this type of falling in love is not ok, this other is ok. And then they usually head directly for the one they so carefully claim to avoid. Only to fall again. Especially it goes: Of course romantic love is just an illusion. And of course I love her of real love. In fact I love her so much of real love, oh my God how much I love her! SBAANG! Oh, yes, let me add something. Bruce not only speaks about how he was supposed to make love with a 1000 women, he also describes practices (rough) to avoid letting this falling in love to happen. Leaving aside the rough practices, one of the non-rough was, after every love session to sit and dissolve everything about the girl. You know how in general after a love session we are all sweet and nice, and keep the sensations inside, wishing for them not to go away. Ok, head the opposite direction. Dissolve everything, and get over it. I think the idea is that if there is something real between you two, it will remain. In any case this will let you see her again like the first time you met her. And if it was all an illusion you will get over it faster, and (important!) not let her remain a ghost when you meet the next girl. Because one thing that is really important in traditional taoism is: the bedroom is not the right place for ghosts. You don't want the ghosts of your past girfriends hunt you down when you are in the middle of making love with someone. EDIT: grammar

I am generally impressed by the lvl of knowledge of this group. Regarding the HT: If you want to go the HT root, the person specialised in dream yoga is actually Juan Li. He is from New Mexico and teaches in Spain and I think in Germany (his wife is a HT senior instructor from Germany).

Sorry to keep on on my own personal sub-thread. I know this is very asocial. Still, I keep on mulling this question over and over. Not only I think the idea of a gf is really linked with romantic love, but I think there are specifical techniques NOT to fall in love. I will refer here two bibliographic references. The first is from Bruce Kumar Frantzis, who at some point of his life was involved in a Taoist Sex group and had to swear that he was not going to have a gf unless he has had sex with 1000 women. This was seen as a prerequisite to be able not to fall into this kind of delusional state where you think a person is a madonna. The second is the book from James McNeil "Ancient Lovemaking Secrets". His school has been claimed being the original school from which Mantak took his HT sexual techniques. I have not read the whole book, but already in his initial story he tells how he had to make love with many taoist women, and once he fell in love with one of them, the teacher asked him to chose: the girl or the practice. A third, albeit non taoist, reference is the book: The Art of Happiness, coauthored by the Dalai Lama (as usual someone interviews the Dalai Lama, writes a book, and then sticks the DL name on it). In this a question about romantic love is being presented and he just diss romantic love as an illusion. The author describes how weird that felt. Is it possible that such a key element in western culture, such an important personal question, is but an illusion. Also there are modern research that suggest that many states of falling in love seems to make someone behave like a drug addict. I can imagine that a tradition that in the centuries, in the millenia, has been looking to make a person free, and spontaneous, might be looking for ways to avoid people becoming addicted. Even to other people. I know this is not the kind of answer you were looking for, and I trust the others will provide you with more palatable answers. It's always a bit the problem when you speak about traditional this, and traditional that: I try to look for references . Cheers, Pietro

Becoming a human being.

I want to share with you what I wrote: In memory of David Carradine, what would Master Po say?

Thanks to mikaelz for raising the topic. I believe this deserves its own independent thread. Those are the rulez: Don't comment the lines. Just add yours. Also cut and paste the lines before you think you could use. Let the list grow! mikaelz:"Hey baby, I lost my yin, can I have yours?" mikaelz:"Ever hear of the yin-yang? it's an ancient symbol depicting the mutual inter-dependence of opposites, in other words.. let's fuck." Here are mine: -"You need some yang in your yin." -"How sweet, you look like a student of mine" -"Got some yang in your yin? Want some?"

***** five stars for this one. I actually have used it. But not as an opening but as a DHV. A lot is also in the way you say it. You must drop it there. Like a 5 kiloton bomb you happen to forget. Also: -Trust me, I'm a Taoist. And you say this while starting to massage her wrist while pulsing her spine.

Actually this is not mine, but from Barry Spendlove the best HT teacher in Wales, who is also a bard: -let me take you to the prostate gland, if you can't find it boys I'll give you a hand EDIT: added the link to Barry website: http://www.healingtaobritain.com/

Tradition, Girlfriend? Hmm. Taoism comes from China. Now China over the centuries wasn't a particularly pretty place. There was great poverty. This means that traditionally if a taoist wanted a companion for the night they could pay very little (what now would be the equivalent of 1 euro) and get a woman for the night. With 5 euro you probably could have her (or him) do anything you wanted. In this context the pressure to find techniques to get companion just isn't there. If a taoist wanted a companion for longer he would just go to the nearest farmer with a pretty daughter, give him some money and buy his future wife. Now all this might look barbaric to us, but you need to realise that those were different cultures, different times, and different economic situation. Also the concept of romantic love is quite modern, and was not present in China. So: having the possibility to have sex when they wanted, having the possibility to buy themselves a wife when they needed, not having the idea of romantic love, all this was at the base of the fact that there was no traditional technique to have a girlfriend. Still I don't want with this to say anything about all the great techniques (or non-techniques) that are being presented over here. Just don't file them under traditional taoist techniques, but under R&D (Research and Development)

Let's all chip in and buy Mal a new avatar, updated with how he is single whipping now! We love you Mal, stop making us suffer.

I decided to start a new thread on the topic of taoist ethics for PUA because I think it deserves it. Taoism is quite well known for not recognising a fixed list of good and bad behaviours. Which is not quite the same of having no ethics, but more suggests that each practitioners should find in each situation what is correct and proper and what would lead to a downfall. PUA in this context represents a vary good case study, which I think can help us more to learn about Taoist Ethics than about PU art. My teacher would ask an ethical question "should you..." and wait for a yes or no answer. And then he would ask why. And the answer to this question could not contain any reference to any writing, any book, any master saying or any external authority of any kind. It had to come direcly from the inside. So we could ask: "should you use PUA techniques to seduce a member of the opposite sex to have sex?" why? And if she is taken? And if she is married? And if she is married but unhappy? And if she is married and happy? and pregnant? and a mother? And if you are willing to use only some techniques, which would you use, and which would you avoid? And if you are avoiding to use a technique, is this not itself a technique, especially if that behaviour is by now natural to you? Of course any other post on the topic is also welcome on this thread. Take those questions just as guidelines.

Are you out of your mind? You do that wrong, and you risk passing the rest of your life paralysed from the neck down. Reconsidering your action. Definitly not the worth any consideration!

Absolutely. And Little1 is right that 10 is too much a small number. So for me: 11) Father Paul (Because he was not)

Hello, my name is Pietro, and I am a Tao Bum Addict. Many times, in secret, I have tried to leave the Tao Bum, and I have failed. I both love and hate this place. I love it for all the people I find, and I hate it for all the time that is taking from what it should definitly be practice time. If I were to practice all the time I am spending at Tao Bum, I would be enlightened by now, or at least have fully embodied the mighty power of the salami as Immortal Ron Jeremy have taught us. I would then be on my way to the salami-no-salami land. I have been looking for a higher power, to quit my addiction, but I recognise in the Tao this higher power, and this search is actually driving me back here, thus further fuelling my addiction. In all those years in the discussion group I have harmed many people, mostly out of my desire to be right and to be recognised. I wish here to make amend. I recognise that everybody is doing his best, and trying to speak out of his higher self, except that asshole of xxxxxx I realise that I cannot really leave this place, and I am thus at the moment just trying to balance my life, which has spin out of control. I wish to take refuge in the Sangha of the female Taoists. May I find a place in their body where I am at home, go live there, and become an immortal by eating their honey, drinking their milk, and breathing their spirit. Thanks for all of you who are here, and help me.

hmmm, ok that's mine: Yoda (because he's the glue), Ron Jeremy (because he's the pepper), Plato (because he's the explosive), 林愛偉 (because he's the wisdom), Max (Smile) (because he's the silence), Keith (Trunk) (because he's the scribe), Trip (because was the first), Stigweard (because he's the mother), VCraigP (because he speaks little) and Taomeow (because she's a woman).

i lv u ct Cool! *thumbs up* *thumbs up* Then we goal in common. I'll be looking forward to read your posts. Regarding women, I have always observed that I tended to attract what I desired, but never in the way I wanted it. It seem there always were an incredible number of presuppositions I were making, about what I wanted. I would get what I asked, but something in the picture was generally out of place. And when I tried to attract a particular girl, the karma backlash wasn't that pretty. So I eventually gave up using those tools, and started learning female psychology.

QUite a lot of hippie kids eventually reach buddhism. What would really be funny is if this kid once it is old enough goes back to knock at a Buddhist Monastery asking to have everything teached to him again. Just imagine the scene: -please teach me -No, you teach me! I hope he brings a friend to take a video and they put it on youtube.

hmm... Pietro, the smart one. (It's your new name, according to me) English is not my first language. I kept on confusing it's and its until I got it explained. I was 29! I reread my posts two times trying to take away any grammar errors. I also try to write in a way that makes it easier, and not harder, for people to understand. I expect other people to do the same. Especially if they are asking me something. I understand speaking in symbols if ur #twittering,& have little space. But while you are here, make that extra mile, that makes it easier for everybody to understand you! Beside being an international forum writing in english helps non english speakers learn the language. Pietro