Pietro

*bows*

Yes, most people find out in their thirties what is that they really love. I doubt that is something 'locked' in some place. I also doubt that there is something we are here to do. Just something that we really enjoy doing, something we feel a call and an excitment in doing, and something that we are really good in doing. (those three things are not usually the same, and this is where trouble starts, hehe) Unfortunately a degree will not, in my experience, help you to find what you want to do. That is a personal spiritual quest that does not need to pay anyone any money. But they can put you in touch with stuff, and some of that resonates. Yes, Genesis, the first book of the bible. There are those people in the bible belt (a part of the US) that claim that since the theory of evolution is just a theory, than they have the right to explain a different theory along side of it in science class. So they call it intelligent design, and they ARE actually teaching it in classes in Texas. It's kind of scary. Mostly because while on the one side you have a 'scientific theory' which can be disproven, on the other you have a series of claims, coming out of a book, that cannot be disproven. So not a scietific theory. If you really want to have fun, google spaghetti monster, and read the home page of the Pastafarian. What I was saying is that like those people are taking a religious belief, and pretending it was a scientific theory, the people at this school give me the idea they will essentially do the same, and take a bunch of myths, and unproven facts, and call it spiritual psychology. I might be wrong. But I don't think I am. I am saying you will not be able to relate to any academic community. And that I doubt they will give you the tool to be able to write papers, do research, and read papers of the academic community. And then you will hit a glass wall. Where essentially if you want to go further you will need to go back and study in another university. But at that point it might be late, you might not have the money, and so on. Indeed they do. And with good reason. The metaphisical component is taught inside religious teachings, which in general cost far far less. What in the academia you can find are teachings about the metaphisical component, and teachings of the material side. Like in Italy there was this professor (Corrado Pensa) he was professor of history of buddhism. He knew the buddhist sutra and the buddhist history inside out. He also was practicing Vipassana meditation. When he retired he became a teacher in meditation. What the academic community can give you are the foundation that make sure that whatever you learn in the spiritual community is placed in the right place. So you dont just learn a technique, but learn where it is coming from, what variation there can be, what where its significance. Can you understand how this will make you reach a deeper understanding not just of buddhism (or taoism) but of yourself. As you stop taking techniques at face value, but relativise them, in an historical context. Take this book: Daoist Body Cultivation: Traditional Models And Contemporary Practices by livia kohn. This is an academic research on contemporary taoist practices. Only someone with a good academic understanding of taoism could write it. If you are going to get an advanced education you deserve this standard. If you are interested in the metaphisical component, alone, you should pay much less, and go to a buddhist or taoist training. No, not at all. Thanks to you, at least for caring enough to explore deeply what I meant. Now the decision is yours and yours only. Pietro

Hi ddilulo, as promised I'll try to answer some of the question you raised. Let start by saying that I agree that if you could clarify better what you would liek to achieve with this degree, it would be easier for us to help you. One thing is to say that we don't feel an institution is giving good education, in general, but suggesting someting else is a different ball game, and you need to tell us a bit more. You might need to do a bit of soul searching on this. I also appreciate that you admitted that you were unable to take the critics. I know it take courage, so kudos on that! Now let's get back to business What is new age? Hmm. Is a millenarian social movement of people that believe that in the near future some great changes are going to happen. It is the culture developed by those people. It is very criticised by many many religions, as being overly simplisitc. The general critic is that new age people tend to a) assume that all religions are the same assume that all religions are going in the same direction, to the same goal, and are in some ways equivalent. And as such people tend to pick and chose from many traditions, often taking the more cool stuff, and leaving aside parts that require real dedication, effort and discipline. As such their spirituality is seen as being superficial. Imagine the difference between a taoist who has lived 30 years in a cave to explore the tao, and then leaves it, and a chi gung teacher who after having followed a week end workshop starts teaching, and you are on the right track. Imagine that the chi gung teacher also mixes material from other disciplines, and calls himself enlightened, and you have the new age archetypal teacher. Many of those people have done a lot of study, but due to their eclectic nature never went deep enough inside a single tradition to really make a real, recognisable from teachers of that traditions, breakthrough. So yes, I am critic of the new age movement. I am not surprised that you came out as 99$ new age. But this is not bad. It just means that you have absorbed a lot of the pop spiritual culture that is around. This is where you start, not necessarily where you will go. hmm, I am very perplexed from this request. You are asking for a link where I explain how christians are pretending that genesis should be taught in scientific class? If this is what you are asking please confirm it. It is so obvious, that I will need to find a good reference (it is like someone saying: will you give me a link that really a black man was elected president of the US? Some news are so big you do not have a single link) But you probably mean something else, so please could you clarify. Have you seen the talk I posted on the other thread? This one? This is a psychological study that proved some real, counter intuitive research done in Harvard. To do this the researchers had to come out with an hypothesis, some tests, and take the statistical data, and find out if their hypothesis was right. This is an amazing scientific work on psychology. It will have ripple effects on the whole psychological community. A good master and phd education on any scientific subject, MUST teach you how to do a work at this level. It is very different from the approach taken by a researcher who just takes a single case and makes a whole theory out of that. This kind of amatorial research is important, and has it's place. But the results are way less authoritative than the kind of research we are talking here. You want to be able to write papers, and read papers, and dialogue with the real academic community. In other words, as the father of a friend of mine who at the time was interested in new age (Castaneda), "yes, but this is sub-culture, not culture". My friend gave up his castaneda books, and instead went for the books of Castaneda professor in Anthropology: Erving Goffman. Now guess what, Goffmann books are a really hard read. I could not read them. My friend could, but he is now getting a degree in psychology! And if you are used to Castaneda, Goffman titles will ring a bell: "The presentation of self in everyday life;";"Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience;"; "Strategic Interaction". Ok, so castaneda is sub culture, Goffmann is culture. New age is subculture. Buddhism, and Taoism, and acupuncture are culture. I simpathise with your hunger and research, but if you are going to pay with money and time to get an advanced education get the best! Yes, exactly. This is not a fact, is an hypothesis, which has never been proven, has been suggested some time in the 19th century (I suppose), and has gained ground as a global myth. I heavily question a school that would not question this idea, and I strongly suspect this school would embrace this idea wholeheartedly. I don't think they are a diploma mill. I question the quality of their teaching, not that they will teach you something. Is not IF they teach you, is WHAT they teach. No, I am saying you should ask them where you should study. You should NOT mention this school. Especially before they gave you their answer. They might tell you about a school which is related with them. This is ok. Just get the info, and cross it with other info. Those are serious academic institutions. You can trust them enough not to send you to some really bad place. The Upaya site does give some sort of one year training to become a Buddist priest. And they have a course I think working with dying. The Abbot is an amazing woman who is miles ahead of any other woman, terms of maturity, I have ever seen. She WILL know where is the best place to study. And I am not suggesting that you study with her/them. Just that you ask them. I think durkhrod chogori answered to this better than I could. In any case two weeks is a ridiculously short time to study anything. It only works because you are supposed to work hard at home, between a retreat and another. In a university they should look over your shoulder to make sure that everything progresses as it should. After the end you will have a piece of paper stating that you have gone through it. In spiritual retreats work because you are doing it for yourself, so sometimes it works great, often it doesn't. You see, I would have nothing against this training if it was not calling itself "master or phd level education". Call it vocational study for the new age priesthood and you have done a better service. But who would pay 83000$ for that?? I hope this answered all your questions. And to all of those who have been offended by my stance on Castaneda, New Age, and similar. Relax, life goes on.

I like the idea of sending stuff to one another. But more than a one time off, I think it would be cool to just send cards and stuff to each other when we feel like. Or just once a month we send a card to whoever we want to send it to, from the tao bums. The problem with the address is a non problem, me thinks, since we can share the address on facebook. By now there is a facebook group, and there you actually know who is who. I on the other side am reluctant of being part of a chain that collects everything, and then buries it somwhere. Sound too much like magik. And I don't see the point of it. If we want to feel close, let's just send stuff to each other.

Sounds like you asked what we thought about it, we answered, and you now cannot stand the answer. In any case you have raised some questions, I'll try to answer them by this evening. Stay tuned. Pietro

Patrick cannot answer because he has been suspended. Actually we don't know what the problem is. He was obviously very angry. But there was also something more. Something that would not let him drop a topic once it was clear that his anger was not well placed (ok, when is it ). There are many things that can make a person be unable to let go of his anger. I personally would go for the usual suspects: B12 deficiency, a diet poor of protein, too much sugary stuff. Alchohol is just one of them. I think Sean did the right thing in suspending him. Not just because he breached the rule, but because when we are so angry we sometimes write and say things we don't really mean. SO to have (or have imposed upon us) the space and time to cool off, can be very beneficial.

But every lame chat eventually brings up taoist points, that are discussed there and then. And every serious question seem always to degenerate into a lame chat. Look at the last discussions, for a great example. It is like you wanting to split a coin in two halves, each with one side only. It doesn't work that way. In the other groups where it is so, you have a very strong policing, and a very weak community. There people speak only to speak about the topic.

Patrick, I really don't think Darin has flagged the video. I think your anger is misdirected. It is ok to be frustrated, and maybe you were pushing the envelope. Not here, but on youtube. There are plenty of sites where you can post a video with nudity, sites that have no problem with it whatsoever. But please do not assume that because Darin had a problem with it here, he would naturally have a problem with it somwhere else. Prude Dude, do you know the latin phrase "omnia munda mundis". It means everything is clean for those that are clean. It's standard knowledge in the church of Rome. If your girlfriend is clean inside she will see everything as clean. Maybe you needed a strong polarity in the past, to change your sexual life. But things might have changed. Now you have a girlfriend, and she seem to be ok both with your weird sexuality , and with some more natural videos. So maybe she could guide you . Once the process is complete and you two are completely free, can we have the videos of you two having sex on the beach? thumbs up for mwight! I too had a girlfriend which I dearly loved but with which the real chemistry was out of bed.

I am sorry, but it doesn't convince me. It sounds like a course in newage-ism. If you want to follow it for yourself, by all means, do it. But I would not trust someone because she has graduated there, the way I would trust someone because she has graduated in a more traditional course (say psychology, or eastern-philosophy, or Buddhist anthropology). I don't expect someone who comes out of there to know anything about psychology, about statistics (which in psychology, and in general in sciences where you are collecting massive amount of data to find out if something is real or not, is really important), about more in general science, nor to have a deep understanding about any spiritual school. I would put this school at the level of christians selling genesis as an acceptable scientific theory. In science there is a procedure which is called peer-review. This is to ensure quality of the results. Only results that have been peer reviewed eventually make it to text books. So students know they are getting quality. New age in general has no peer review. And the fact that they use the term "psychology", is misleading. More than that, there is a new age myth that al religions ultimately are the same. Another that every population on the earth believed in God, and that every religion has to do with God. Anthropologically speaking this is false. Taoism is an example which for hundreds of years (at the very least), had no God or pantheon. Yet, I am ready to bet a consistent amount of money that if you take three faculty members in this school, and ask them if all religions at their core are the same, at least two will tell you that "yes indeed they are". I am sorry if I sound negative, but there is a hardship that people go through when they study at a master or doctoral degree (but also at a bachelor degree). This comes from tackling not easy problems, and getting at the bottom of them. The final piece of paper represent the fact that you actually did challenge those problems and went to the other side. It is just a visible sign of a change that must have happened. I generally find people in newage to take interesting problems, take away any discipline and hardship, and keep the rest. I would be very worried that such a school might have similar standards. Personally I think the phrase: "Approved by the Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education" sais it all. There are wonderful courses in Taoism, in Buddhism, in the study of mind. Look at Upaya, for example, they would know where to study some serious buddhism. Or, if you are interested in Taoism, look at Livia Kohn, and in general at the Mind and Life institute. Ask them where to study what you want to study. Those are all serious researchers, who went deep in their field, and are world wide recognised. Good luck with your decision. Pietro

The problem is not if you would like to have a subforum just for practice, but if it is possible. You see the forum where you are writing in is already such forum. In fact everything which is not about practice shoudl go in the out of topic forum. But no one uses that because everybody is more interested in feedback from his friends that in feedback strictly on the topic. In a sense this community is so cool because of this. On the other side this community sucks because of this. The solution would be to add tags, we have discussed it many times. I don't know why Sean after wanting to do it, have dropped it. Maybe he is just too busy right now.

I am very surprised by this. I know many people who are able to feel and see their dreams while awake, and they are not schizophrenic. They just meditated enough to be aware of them. I think sometimes limit expressed by philosophies and traditions, are more a tell tale of what you can do with that particular system that of what is possible, in some others. In the taoist tradition, as it was taught to me, you always keep your concentration in the phisical body. You might expand it to reach other bodies, but you do not stop feeling the body. This was not only presented to me as something inside our tradition (the water tradition), but as something inside all of taoist meditation. In other words, if a meditation did not do that, it was not really taoist, or not traditionally taoist. I know this might sound offensive to some of you. Take it as it is, a description given to us by a taoist lineage master in traditional taoism. Not the last word, but quite an authoritative word. I am sorry, I think you lost me here. I have a hard time thinking of the consciousness as an object with a radius, and a continuum, that can be localized, and maybe measured. I think you are using a metaphore that is strongly limitating. It didn't, but thank you. hehe

YEs, many people think Tibetan Buddhism and Taoism were once one, and then diverged. What I mean is that you can reach the 8th body before dying. Said that I can assure you that you can be conscious of multiple bodies at the same time. I can quite easily be present in my emotional body and my physical one, for example. Just like you can be present to your left hand or your right hand, or you can balance your attention, and be present to both of them at the same time. 1971 if I remember well. kudos for someone knowing Science!! That paper was the one that eventually originated the whole Chaos theory. Edward Lorentz, btw, passed away just last year. Thanks Stig, this morning I actually realised that I needed to clarify that the blockages don't come only from society, they also come from our actions, our karma, our past life karma, and interestingly other's karma. Because deep enough we are all one. So please don't spill the milk or I'll have to clean

Yes, Sean, but America IS fucked. That is not swearing, that is a descriptive statement. (and no, not because of those elections) I disagree with this. And the idea of caling something naive and adolescent is motherly, and unrespectful of a discussion between adults. I have emailed many times with Ron, and Ron was more at ease when he was able to swear. Bruce, is an example of a teacher who swears a lot. He can speak like a PhD, as he is, but when he is relaxed his wording would make Patrick blush, and Darin escape. There are some people who are more confortable swearing a bit. I think a lot of it depends on what was your education, and what are your values. FOr example if you want to be a sailor, you might end up swearing a lot, just because you want to be like them. I personally don't like swearing, but I am confortable with people swearing (at least usually). What I am not confortable with is people who feel constrained.

There was a monastery, near chiang mai. It would give 4 week long retreats, but you could remain for less. You were giving donations, and you were expected for the time inside to follow the rules. It would teach vipassana. I don't remember the details, either. But it shouldn't be that hard to find. Oh, the info were in English. Maybe, if you find it, you could post the details for the next person.

Not that I know off. But I would not be surprised if they did in Korea or China. Personally I find Go to be the only game worth being played. And no, it is not possible to write a computer program to play go seriously. (You still can beat a player up to 8 kyu, but this is low amatorial). I think there are many connections between Go and Taoism, but so far I could not find any traditional studies of the two compared. Which is funny, as, for example, I could easily represent the 4 energies of Tai Chi in my way of playing Go. This is how versatile it is. No Darin, it's her sister. Why are you stirring the pot? You are celibate, you keep your desire in check, and then you go looking on a video which will probably include naked women, just to protest. This is like the old lady: -policeman, policeman, the man in the house in front is walking naked in front of the window -but milady, he is only naked from the waist up -no, no, climb on the chair, above the table and check. But I have another story, true story, in the north sea, at the seaside people are having problems. At the beach east-german, and polish people are fighting with each other. The Polish, very religious and catholic, are protesting because the east german are going around naked at the beach (as it was their use from some years). This offends their sensibility. But also the German are pissed off. They protest that the Polish keep on looking at them, and at their women. Who is right?

Hi Mat, I am not wiser, but I might be a bit more knowledgeable. At least following what I learned from Bruce. And this is how the human state is seen in the water tradition of taoism. There are 8 energy bodies. One is common to all, that is the Tao. To be one with the Tao means to be one with the universe (albeit, I am not sure about the vice versa). The next body going down is the body of individuality. This is not the same for each of us, and is not coming from society. To reach this body means to have integrated everything below, and be one. I am not at this stange, but essentially this is the stage where in this tradition the spiritual game begins. Before is all monkeys trying to be human beings. This is also the stage where a person would go to another body as one unit, after death. Before you get fragmented after death. Then below the body of individuality you have the other bodies. Causal (or karmic), psychic, mental, emotional, energetic and physical. Here you have blockages, and those blockages are also coming from society. Now I am not saying that the desire (sacred right, according to me) to foul speak is not coming from social conditioning. To be able to say this I should not only have reached myself the body of individuality, but be able to know if Patrick has reached himself the body of individuality. Maybe he has, maybe he hasn't. It is not my business. Said this I would suggest that you look a bit to the philosophy of the western civilization. This whole idea that human is naturally pure, and then corrupted by society does not come only from taoism, but in different ways has a long root over here too. Look at french philosopher, and illuminism, and Thureau, but you can go back to some presocratics. I wish I haven't passed all my Philosophy classes in high school planning the next D&D adventure. But rereading those roots might give you the opportunity to find out, consciously, wether you agree with them or you don't. If you don't, you run the risk to not notice that you might have picked them up from society unconsciously, and then you will be the person unconsciously controlled by society, ... to say that society is controlling us. Indeed! Hehe. I am telling you this, because I did a similar work, on a different topic (it was about being rebellious), and it was a humbling experience to find that all the thoughts I thought were so personal and creative and unique, and mine, were actually totally classic for a male of my age, and of my background. What I am telling you is, the idea that we are essentially pure and society has corrupted us, is just one of those patterns. Exploring where this idea might be useful, even if at the end you might still agree with it. Hope this helped. Pietro P.S. for what is worth, in the theory of the 8 energy bodies, as it was explained to me, you can also find a difference between Buddhism and Taoism. They both divide the human experience in the same way, but according to B. is not possible to be in all the 8 bodies at once. So you cannot be in the physical body while being in the Tao Body. One has to go. According to T., as it was theorethically presented to me, it is possible. Such people are called immortal, but I think, they still physically get old and die.

Desert Eagle, is that Sai on your pic? Do you play Go? Pietro Edited to take away the irrelevant quote.

Or what? Be banned too? SiliconValley, this is where I come from. What should I do? Shut up, and see thic community become a sterile place. Or talk and drive on me the critic of all the new people (you see, I did it again!) who see this place as yet another forum? But let me share something. And please understand, this IS NOT a critc to Sean. I critic someone when I say that he is not doing good. But how do you call it saying that someone is doing good, but he can do better? I call it suggestion for improvements. This forum originated from another forum. The other forum had as webmaster a man called James. Now James would generally never intervene. To the point that often we did not even know if he was present or not. The forum was the official forum of the Healing Tao. At some point an instructor came to this forum. And this was a kickass instructor, he was a senior instructor, instructor also in another school, and an acupunturist. He also wrote one or two books. So he arrived, started giving suggestions, and copying his notes from the acupunturist school. I still have them somwhere. He also somehow mentioned that he was teaching here and there. Eventually Plato drove him away. In one historical post he wrote something about subtle advertisments. I don't remember the exact words, but the tone was harsh. The instructor left. Later that instructor met Michael Winn (who was officially in charge of the place), and protested for how he has been treated. Michael contacted James. And James answered: "he came with the 'I know it all'-attitude, and had his ass kicked by the community. That was just the energy at work". That's how I realised that James has not been absent the whole time. This is what I would call an amazing job. Sean is doing a good job, is keeping the majority happy, and manages to do this without getting crazy, which in itself is quite an achievement. But don't kid yourself: real Te looks like no Te. From the Addiss Lombardo translation.

How interesting. Thank you. I thik if I were drafted for a silly war far far away, and came home to find my piece of land seized by a senator, and in exchange having one meal a day I would feel pretty piss'ed off. BTW, is the west that collapsed. The east kept on for a long time. And for those that are interested thare is a wonderful podcast on the history of the Byzantine empire.

No, no. This place is quite civilised by now. Unfortunately.

Are you saying that you are screwed because of obama, or that you were screwed in any case, and the fact that obama is in the seat is just an irrelevant detail?

nice way of putting it simple and elegant

Hi Stigweard, I was curious about this thread. I read it in full. I seem to have missed it before. I also never found anything objectionable with Patrick behaviour. Not by my standards, by any standards. This probably says something about how little do I read about some topics. But after your post I was curious, so I went to see Patrick posts. There is a function that let you find all the posts from a person. Or at least I believe it is all of them. In short I could not find a single post that I found objectionable in there from after the 1st of November, in the last week. Could you please tell me what are you refering to? I really don't get it. Many thanks, Pietro