Pietro

I know, I know. Dichotomy sucks. If you feel like an Angel, on your way to become a God, still chose one of the two.

Or maybe that I was a wise men, but now I have become a fool! Now this is a really interesting question. My non PC answer is that although each of us have all three in them, we do tend to behave mostly as one of them. So we indeed tend to be either a wise man (or woman ), or a medicre man (or woman), or a fool. And this leads to: were we born as mostly one of them? And where we all born with the same balance? In other words the question that each of us should answer for himself is: are you a cockroach on your way to become an angel, or an angel on your way to become a cockroach?

LOL, I love you for this!

Let me share a little story. When I started being interested in Taoism, I bought a small booklet titled "Taoismo". I found it really interesting. At every page I would vibrate with it. And soon I was citing Taoist scriptures, taoist concepts, and sprinkle "yin", "yang" like salt and pepper in every conversation. Poor friends of mine. Then I moved on to Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and then on to my first Yoga class. It took about 6 years before I found the first taoist school. By that time I had lost my original Taoist book. So eventually, a good 2 decades later, I found the book again in a bookstore. I immediatly bought it, wondering what would I find this time. And what I found was... the greatest amount of new age bullshit you can imagine. Imprecise, factually incorrect. Mixing concepts that never were part of Taoism, if not in the head of some western writers. And as a final slap the book explained how it did not spoke about the search for imortality and alchemical taoism, as it was not the Real taoism, but just blatant, popular, magical believes. Which should not have been part of Taoism in the first place. And what is the take away message? I am not sure. But I am sure there is a great message. I just can't really point it out yet. I guess when I'll read this message in a couple of decades, I might feel differently.

Pretty sure. I can provide a link to my memory it was in a paper that was photocopied by Mantak Chia staff and distributed at Tao Garden.

the worm life lengthed by 10% not 40%

Yes, mostly they are being produced in various organs. So Anger is being produced by the Liver. Now I think the jury is out wether Anger is stored in the Liver. My experience is that emotions are produced in an organ, but are then stored pretty much everywhere. In fact tend to be stored where there is already a blockage. As a pipe that would not drain, when a channel is clogged, all sort of energy gets blocked there. And when you open the pipe sometimes the student/client/taoist will experience those emotions. So yes, you might have to digest emotions that were not produced by you. This does not scare me so much, as I think we do it pretty much all the time. What I find mre creepy is the idea that suddenly I start having new processes by which I produce those emotions. Like the woman who got the organ of a guy and started to find exciting red hair busty women. But at the end, if your only possibility to stay alive is organ transplant you might discover that it is actually not that bad. At least compared to the alternatives.

And based of the part of the limited part of this deep knowledge that I had the luck to acquire I tried to answer you!

If we had a Pope we could ask him. Since we have no Pope, we need to come out with an answer ourselves. My guess would be that most people would consider that when you are donating an organ the shen of that organ gets transplanted as well. Now if you are a nice individual, if the other person is also a decent human being, if you have not fused all your shen into one, then it probably does not matter. In any other case it probably dose. As a personal note I would feel some problems in having my organs transplanted into someone who is not into some sort of cultivation. Think of your organs as your kids, would you want them to go and live in aless then perfect situation. Often not, but how often do you have a choise. Beside the shen of the organ gets an extra occasion to live on, and this might be useful for it, or not. It seem to be one of those situation where human discretion is needed, and there is no clear cut answer. To use a worn phrase: follow your heart unless you are transplanting your heart, in which case you cannot.

Thanks, very interesting! Your research on the spiritual side of our roots is amazing, and it has inspired me in my practice. Do the scientists also found any way to notice that something 'weird' is happening? Like measuring the heart beat or whatever?

You see jedi, when you stop pretending to be scientific, and you stop pretending that you are not preaching, you write mech better posts. Yes, ethiacal and ecological reasons are a good reason to eat less meat. I also wanted to add that raw meat is very different from cooked meat. So I heard more than one vegetarian that after being vegetarian for many years decided to get back meat because they feel they need. But to avoid the poisoning of it they started eating it raw.

Wow. Thanks. I'll download and read them. I have just moved into a new office and all the lights are non bulbs. Pietro

Very interesting Taomeaw, thanks. If you could find back the study that showed how fluorescent light produces probles (like vitamin A depletion), we could use it to defend ourselves. For example for me I could use it next time someone comes to protest because I bring my own light in my office. FOr me the best light I found was the fluorescent light bulb that gave a whole range solar light (I don't know how to describe it better, they are bluish in color). But I am looking forward for any REAL progress in this area. Pietro

My answer is here. Sorry about this, but I don't want some material to go on google. At least for some time.

you are joking, right? Can you send me the url or something where you read it.

On the main issue, I agree on all that has been said. Vortex, how come you are having so much trouble with Taoism when you PU? I find most of my material comes from Taoism, they love that I am different, that I have something to offer that others cannot, maybe we should start a thread in the personal section. It shouldn't go on google, but among us something for PUT should be shared.

This is very good news! Yeay!! I hope in future we continue to interact.

It would be helpful, but what Sean can do is limited to what this particular software package is preprogrammed to do. Changing other's code is not the easiest thing. Said that we were speaking about renting a coder to make the modifications we all would like. And then sharing the cost. If this is done, this modification would be, I think, among the top priorities. Also for me. Pietro

sometimes you need to take decisions

Guy, you got it the wrong way around. It is you who are supposed to be inside the ultimate lover, not the opposite! One of the reason why the penis can burn is if the energy got stuck over there, instead of being reabsorbed back.

In all those stories, I remember one that Bruce once told me: "take a person like Bill Gates, he was not born inside any special family, but now he is a major player of the game". Now maybe you can trace his line through various ancestors to some royal bloodlines. But then I claim that we con do the same for each of us. The fact that people with power are related, connected, and meet between them have more to do with graph theory, small world networks, and how relationship networks work. And in particular the fact that in human relationship networks nodes that have many connection tend to connect to nodes that have many connection. (This is not always the case in general, for example the network of websites the opposite is true!) Max, you hear me, and I hear you. That's enough Have a good new years eve.

If he posted in a single thread he would not lose readers. Actually this is one of the situation where I feel that a new section like the book club would be good solution. We could also call it "religious taoism". Or Taoism in Nature, so if another Taoist Priest turns up later, we are not starting a major major war, but just a major war

He is anonymous, and is writing in a simple way what others (or maybe himself) has been theorizing. But because of his anonimity we have no way to asctein if he is not just making up things. Think about Castaneda: he took existing theories, studied them, and rewrote them as if it was something happening personally to him. Because we read it as a first person account now we are more prone to think that it might/should/must be true, while because the writer is unreachable (either anonymous, or he has "deleted his personal history"), we are in no position to investigate if his claims are true. I am curious to know what kind of claims he makes that if proven wrong would make all his construction crumble. I have a hard time in finding any, as everything is very imprecise. But unfortunately even if we were to find such a claim, and it was proven wrong, the people who feel like there must be such a conspiracy behind the chaos in this world, would keep on believeing it. Think about astrology, and how many predictions were done over the years. How often at the end of a year, instead of looking back to the predicitons of the ending year, and checking which were true, and which false, we just go and look for the prediction about the coming year. FOr example, he says: San Francisco and Damascus, will be uninhabitable by the end of 2010, possibly even sooner. Again, it depends upon certain 'forces' at play, and which timelines are activated. If it happens sooner he says: I told you so. If as probable will not happen, he can still say: a different timeline was activated, And if it happens of course he gets the biggest bang. In short he is not making any controlled controllable prediction, he is being anonymous, and as such just spreading foul air. Sorry, Max, but I see this as useful as a fart in a crowded room.

How did you reached a 1000 posts? Did you hacked someone else account? How could you go this far without asking this question? (note I am not saying that everybody who has so many posts must agree, but we had this discussion more time a year than Mak's Fu posts) I think he is ok. I only find mildly offensive the implication that the rest of Taoism is not real taoism (yeah, we all made up the stuff we are practicing!) but I think he is right in offering his services. Look you wouldn't be offended if it was a student saying: "this guy over here, could help you, but he will want to be paid." One time per problem is allowed. WARNING: It is only easy to stop the first time and this is why: