Pietro

is the whole of ttb indexed by google? For example this would not find info from the personal development practice section. Pietro P.S. Have you noticed how I did not speak about tags at all?

Do you still agree with it? Pietro

... and the aim, ...and the understanding the ingestion of external material can help reaching that aim. Kind as usual, eh? enlighten us.

Thanks. No I was not aware of Harrison book. Well, from what I know researches on aging are being very well funded at the moment. Both in the US and in Europe. Plus there are many people who do not study aging directly but have it in the back of their mind. As Joffrey West (video).

Hello again. As you can imagine I am not very fond of this take it all or take it none attitude. And I am aware of how the education system was studied to tame the young mind. But I only read about it on Zinn's People's History of the United States. There it was not connected with scientific method, nor with the idea of dissecting a topic to understand it better at all. In fact I am not very convinced with the two being in any relation. Apart for a mere historical collusion. So do you think you can give me some references on the history of the education system? Because I do believe that a lot of ill things came from that. And I am very upset with the way in which kids have been and are still being schooled. But I do believe that eliminating the rational investigative attitude, to eliminate the scholar system would amount to throwing away the baby with the bathwater. Pietro I find very interesting the movement from external alchemy to internal alchemy. Also because right now I see the opposite movement happen. Because of the evolution of medicine, and the studies about the way the brain, and the hormonal system works, there seem to be more and more people who are looking for external drugs to give them the pill of immortality. Or at least of long life. And with reason, if it is true (as I read it has been shown) that once you give hgh to 80 year old people, on average few of them die. Of course the jury is out on the topic of using the drug for long term prevention from old age. The other thing that I would like to understand is when exactly did Buddhism came to China. And what reference does it have to alchemical practices. Understood that neo taoism, from 1000AD was a synergetic movement that put together Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Still before that moment Daoists and Buddhist and Confucianists coexisted. Fought, interbred. I wonder how responsibe is Buddhism for the alchemical school itself. But this is part of my quest to understand the origin of the water/fire duality. Pietro

Hi Taomeow, thanks for the description. Not sure if I understood it all. Let's see, you are looking for an experience that every human being who have gone through gestation and remembers it all have. This gave me some problems: gestation as mother or as kid. I assume as kid (or fetus). Most of us remember nothing of that period. If you are able to remember some part of it this is already quite impressive. But you specifically speak about missing two weeks. Where you born too early? I now see how you use the term "endarkment" in a different way from how I use the term enlightenment. Enlightenment is (from my understanding) more a description of the aim, than a description of the path. As such I have difficulties in understanding someone who said that they are looking for endarkement. A bit like someone saing that they are looking for confusion, and ignorance? doh? But now it seem to me that your description about edarkment more reflects what you expect to be going through. While the aim is integration, living all the human steps. So in a sense the aim might even be a sense of light itself, so the two term don't seem to be polar at all anymore. You can have experience of darkness that lead to light, that do not lead to light. And experience of non darkness that lead to light or do not lead to light. I hope I have well represented what you said. So please correct me if I didn't. In particular I have difficulties with this: So maybe you can clarify it to me a bit further, if you have time. Pietro

Yeah, guys. If you could chose between having a map of daoist places and read no Chinese. Or be proficient in Chinese but with no map, which one would you chose. Chinese is obviously not easy, but it is possible. ANd by now you can find classes of mandarin in every major city. But a list of Daoist places where to practice might be much harder to find. I have to say I am personally impressed by Dao Zhen. You might have already understood this by how I am semi-religiously doing his practice every day. (Look at my journal for details on this). But so many things that for years were legendary, are now starting to be in plain sight. And I find this to be possible thanks to this community, to the internet, and to people who are living all this and are willing to share. And Dao Zhen seem to be among the most generous ones. So I am really happy of how the whole situation is evolving. ANd yes, I did wonder myself if we should have printed out the document, and then walked around, with the paper, pointing at it, looking for directions

Hello. How would you describe "endarkment". I read the word but I just don't seem to be able to relate them to anything. I know of different ways to reach enlightenment. Or to reach different stages, and states, and enlightenments. But to reach an "endarkment" ... maybe you could share what is that you are looking for. And how would you know that you are there. And who, if anyone has reached this stage. And of course what kind of stages and training did they went through to reach it. Would this be possible, for this would greatly help me/us. Thanks, Pietro

Before it returns it will make experiences so to bring a gift Addendum: oops, sorry! in my cup of tea, do you really want to know, for I see what is

Thanks Dao Zhen. I think if someone suceeds in putting it in pdf format you should be able to see the chinese characters. Do you read Chinese Craig? I am starting to look around for tools to help me start. I tried to download the file and open it, but also for me some characters did not appear. In any case I am adding the pdf attachment. Craig, you probably should be able to read (or see) most of it. If anyone suceeds in opening it with all the characters in place in pdf format, could they please upload it. Thanks, Pietro 10_Big_holes___36_small_hole_and_72_lucky_places_of_Taoism.pdf

I owe you! And here is the peer reviewed paper: Waterland, R.A, Jirtle RL. Early nutrition, epigenetic changes at transposons and imprinted genes, and enhanced susceptibility to adult chronic diseases. Nutrition 20: 63-68, 2004. [PDF] I am seriously impressed. Just go to the publication page of the supervisor, and look for all the papers from the authors.

Of you can find the peer reviewed paper I might be willing to pay you

Yes, and I suspect by a lot. Just think of planckton. What really shock me was reading (The Red Queen) how the weight of microbes in your body is higher than the weight of your cells. Now I don't have the book here, and I might be remembering it wrong. I mean maybe it is "just" the total number of microbe cells that is higher than the total number of our cells. Not the weight. In both cases is quite an interesting picture. And it gives more sense to all those practices that work with changing, developing the internal ecosystem. Primal diet, but also those people that go in the desert because this kills some of the guests. Also in the red queen there was a very interesting view of why do we age. According to this the immune system is able to differentiate between your cells and the "not you" cells, because the first posses some sort of protein code that they only posses. (can you see that this in not my area of specialisation?) Every human being has a different one. And sex makes sure that the new generation get a new scrambled code. So for microbes they need to evolve to be able to match this code. When they do you basically have no defense against them. It is interesting, because in this view it would be quite hard to live really long. You might avoid all sort of deaths. But eventually the microbes will catch up with you. And if a new you would re-appear it would have a shorter life span because the microbes already are on their way to get your code... sorry if this last pragraph didn't made much sense. To your consolation you might as well know that it didn't made much sense even on this side of the screen . What I find puzzling in this view is that although it is hard to find a code, it is very easy to make a code harder. Just make it longer. So I am not that convinced myself.

What a trip that must be, from the mountain to the sea, and back like salmon

Well, the fact is that unicellular creature, microbes and such do have bits and pieces of dna that get activated when the right situation arises. So of course this awakens the desire that the same would be true for human as well. Is it? I don't think so. For once microbes are wey more evolved than us. They easily have a new generation in 24 hours, while we are some 10000 times slower. This means that we just never had the possibility to test enough sequences. I mean you can have a virus where the same code can be read in both direction. and I think even taking an ofset of one or two bases. Which means that the same code can be read in 6 different ways. All 6 meaningful. This is like having a book where if you ignore the first letter and you regroup the letters they have actually a different meaning. Now some spiritual books claim to be written in this way. But by and large it is too much work. Of course having sex gives us a bit of a shortcut. But then microbes have genetic internet, where they share their dna, like if you were to give a kiss to a red head girl, and you start to grow red hair. You can see how we are just so primitive respect to them. And this is why I wouldn't hold my breath on those practices being able to activate much code. Not that is impossible. Just VERY VERY unlikely.

This is a very beautiful question. One of those simple questions who has no simple answer. Which does not mean that it has no answer. Just that the answer is composite of many parts. All of them true. The first thing that we observe is that this world is limited. One of the first thing that kids learn is that the pie will end. The fun will end, and after Christmass there is another day which is not Christmas. Now this is a very big lessons that spiritual people tend to throw in the trash as soon as possible. Coming from well off families, the idea that the amount of food in this world is limited is somehow an easy to ignore truth. And this is the first part of the answer: limited resources. And here also you have the quote from my own icon: We are here to devour each other. It is a bum eats bum world. Then comes the second part. Because even when we have limited resources we are also quite good in dividing them in the worse possible way. I mean you easily can have in a society 2% of the population have 98% of the resources. This kind of percentages are quite common among economists. They speak about 20/80 and similar (meaning the 20 percent of the population has 80% of the resources), and so on. And here the keyword if you are REALLY interested in following this line of thought are Power Law, and Vilfredo Pareto. So interestingly there are many systems in nature where if an element gets well off, then it has a higher chance to be more well off in the future. When this happens the result is a power law. Which means, few elements will have MASSIVE amount more than the median (the one element that has as many people richer than people poorer). This law has actually been recognised many times in spiritual history. Jesus called it "to who has shall be given". If I remember well Lao Tzu spoke about the way of heaven, and the way of human. The way of human being to give to who already have, and to not give to who does not have. While the way of haven is to give to who does not have. In any case you have those two principles. And some systems follow one, and some follow the other. It turns out that is REALLY hard to make a system of one kind (say economy) into a system of the other. People have tried it for a long time. Some people think that actually power law are the more fair system, respect to the bell curve (which is what you get from the "way of heaven" system type) subdivision. So we have this second law of nature: Most system are of a "to who has shall be given" type. Add this to the limited resources system and you have a system where many people are in great need. Now the big question is, if this is the natural state for living beings in this planet. Why do we have goodness, reciprocicity. Why do we have people like you asking this question. After all now it seems like a really dumb question, right? Well, no. You are right to answer this question, because you are a member of the human species. And human beings for the great majority have evolved a sense of fairness, and goodness. And a sense of disgust for things that are really unfair. Most of us are willing to pay a serious price just to see unfair treatment being punished. And interestingly enough, other primates behave in similar way. So if goodness came from heaven it wasn't given just to us. But if we all have been given this sense of fairness, why don't we all follow the way of heaven, and give to who needs, and to hell with the power law distribuiton, and so on. Well, no, because our sense of fairness only reaches a certain point. Few people would be willing to die because they feel that it would be fair. We are willing to pay some, but not to pay with our own life. Maybe there were some people in the past that were willing to die for the sense of fairness. Unfortunately enough of them did not reach a reproductive age enough so that their genes would be around. Yet, some fairness is generally good. Both to the individual, and to the kins (people who are in the same group, and share the same dna). And then according to some research there are also a minority of people who have NO sense of fairness at all. In fact they never feel love or warmth toward another human being. Life for them is simply a matter of domination. SOme people think that they are the cause of evil. Yet, they make great warriors. In the right context they can be very useful to the society. On the other hand are really dangerous as leaders. And yes, because another reason why there is evil, is because most of us tend to respect authority. Even those of us who seem so rebellious. Now I don't know if we evolved to respect authority, or we were conditioned. But for sure most of us would be willing to make other people suffer if an authority people told us that it is ok. Now sum this information with the fact that there is scarcity, the little we have is spread through a power law (also power), there are few people who have no sense of guilt, and that we are willing to cause suffering to be ok with authority, and you have an explosive mixture. A place where few people only desire to dominate. Some of them will do anything they can to emerge int he top part of the power law. Once they are there they have authority (either they have it or they buy it). Then with this authority they just can keep on dominating. And this gives to the rest of the people the evil sensation. Now interestingly if there were no people with no sense of guilt there would also be less evil sensation. But also if we were all with no sense of guilt. Because those people (also known as sociopath) tend to feel very little pain themselves. It is the mixture which makes the pie tasty. Now this is the material background. To this add the rest that you know. The need to require revenge when you have suffer. A need that spiritual people try hard to overcome. But for the great majority is very much present. Also because it is just not easy to do it. You can't just wish it. Take a person who has suffered a lot, say tortured in prison. Free him, and you have a person who is psychologically a mess. And will often try to get revenge. AFter all this is just part of his heart trying to feel there is some fairness in this world. And we have already said how we like people who like fairness. Hmm. And then you have the other side. After you have suffered you will try to avoid that situation. And this makes you fearful, and unspontaneous. While sometimes is good to be fearful, some other is not so good. And here you have the middle age person who has been wonded by relationship, and never let himself (or hemself) slip into one. And this causes even more suffering. And you might say that the last two are actually caused by ignorance, and anger, and fear. But they are also caused by a sense of fairness, and a sense of wanting to protect yourself. But I will agree on the ignorance bit. And then the last bit (again on ignorance) is that we were not borned learned. We have to try, and test, and make error to make experience. But all this experience caused pain, that bounced around, until someone was able to forgive it, or just died of old age. So you are asking why do we have evil? I would say there are many things (behaviour/people) that we would call evil. But all together the situation is a complex one that puts together a world of limited resources, with a fundamental law of nature of to who has shall be given, to a lot of ignorance (unavoidable in beings that are born innocent but ignorant, and die wise and guilty). And all this have evolved some control mechanism, of fariness, and self preservation, and testing around, and a psyche that works hard to avoid suffering, causing some time even more suffering (but to others). But somehow all those elements were succesful in making a species that manages in enough cases to produce viable ofsprings. Which is all Nature care. In all this the question is, how can YOU be happy?

well, it seems pretty obvious that finding this information is quite important for you. For whatever reason it is important for you, it does not matter. So, why don't you just contact directly Rene? I mean, Rene, is a nice person. I don't have his email address, but I am sure Michael (Winn) has it. He lists Rene as his "faculty" of the Healing Tao University. So I think that if you send a mail to Michael, explaining your concerne, and why you would like to contact Rene, he might be able to help you. I mean, I know it might be costly, but you could consider going for a workshop with Rene, and asking it while you are there. I know it sounds folliosh to spend so much money for an information which is public, but Rene workshop are generally so good that I am sure the money will be well spent. And then you can ask Rene with ease about it. Personally I think that David's PhD is quite irrelevant to his accomplishments, which seem to standup by themselves.

Thanks! This makes it so much easier to read!

since the quote did not work, could you please either move the original messages, or better just assign a different color for each of us. RIght now it is so hard to read. And yes, it is all for a laugh, but let's make it proper, or at least nice.

Interesting, so where did you found it? Newspaper (which), leaflet, website (url). Pietro

This madness must end, We don' have a spare world, Or a spare life!

Xuesheng, please, don't make me state the obvious! The author (Cat, Little 1, who ever) might be on holiday/busy/at the loo/meditating in Tibet and only coming back in May.

Hello xuesheng, Thanks for picking up my suggestion. Although i am strategically happy if Robinet book is not on the list now, (the less taoist books there are the more people who are only interested in taoist texts will vote compact), still i feel unconfortable with my voting suggestion causing another member's raccomandation to be taken away. Can we please ask Little 1 before taking away her suggestion. And if she does not answer we keep it. Being involved in the process this would make me feel much better. Thanks, Pietro

Pay the meter, maid. And get till satisfaction. I'm here just for you!

As I was looking at the books suggested by Procurator in the other thread, I saw a book that I think we REALLY should read. And we should read it soon. It is from Livia Kohn (very famous and well known scholar on Daoism, friend of Michael Winn). Her book is Daoist Body Cultivation: Traditional Models And Contemporary Practices (Paperback) The picture in the front is a picture that use to be sold as a poster at Tao Garden. I have not read this book (although I just ordered it). My guess, reading the title, looking at the picture, knowing her past (and present) as a daoist scholar, and knowing about her friendship with Michael, is is that in this work Livia studies the modern practices (I would expect the ones from Mantak Chia to be present, but possibly not only), and describes how they relate to the ancient tradition. I think this book is a MUST for this community, and this club. I am also very favorable to Robinet book, (which I will read in any case), but I fear that a second book on the history of Daoism can be a bit too much, one after the other. And I would suggest to read it a bit later. And I don't support the other for considering them out of scope. So, in any case, Livia Kohn's book is the book that I would like to suggest for the May discussion. Pietro