Ian

I would suggest starting with very relaxed belly breathing, some stillness meditation and some very simple qigong with a downwards flavour. And a certain amount of time considering exactly what you hope to achieve, as that will likely be your main basis for further decisions. Good luck. As a general rule, see if you want to be like someone or not before you do what they're doing.

I want to keep goddesses, pixies, Elvis and mermaids. Can I Dad, can I? I'll brush them and feed them and take them for walks. Pleeeeease !

What I found challenging was trying to tune in to the background vibe with that mentalist kitten coming at me all the time. Good practice !

Now we're getting somewhere ! Can you tell me? How is it when you are loving? What's the difference between that and not loving? And physically. How does it feel? Unfortunately, I believe so. Most of us, in my opinion, have an idea of love, an attitude of love. But not love. But then I guess it depends what we mean by the word. And if I remember, previous attempts to define it have not exactly reached consensus ! I wish we could all just meet up and talk about this. I reckon we'd all be agreed in half an hour. I must admit I'm getting sick of being so pompous and opinionated. Which means I must be irritating the shit out of the rest of you !

Don't worry - bad karma is good karma !

Splendid, carry on.

What? Are you saying I should shut up and leave Mr Deida alone, because he might help people? If not, please elaborate... If so, where is the ultra-libertarian Pietro I know and love? I happen to believe his path is not a path and will leave people more lost than they started. That's all.

I never suggested waiting. I don't know where Pietro got that. I just suggested not faking, and I believe Deida encourages faking. Pietro seemed to suggest that not faking implied waiting. I entirely agree with starting from where you are. And the rest is just semantics. You can say the ego has no power, and that is true, in essence. But 6 billion people are in thrall to it every moment, so it's not without the ability to convince that it does have power. It has force, for sure, if not power. How long can you sit thoughtless? Myself, not that long. I think it's bollocks. It sounds wonderful. The skin of his writing is inspiring, as ever. And the reason we feel like failures is precisely because it's a shining ideal with no practicality. How would this love actually be done, made, carried out, in these moments of doubt shame, whatever? What would the state be, where would one's attention be, in the moment? Curious: he doesn't say. I bet if he was demonstrating it, there would be some noble facial expressions.

Let's do it ! I'm free most of next weekend. You handle the techie side, and I'll fix the drinks.

I remember an old quote from Bucky Fuller about how all that accumulation would one day let the earth become a star. I've no idea what science thinks of that, these days.

Way back in the past, when stones had legs, I had a session of private tuition with Rene Navarro. I kind of wanted to know about progression in Healing Tao stuff, where, if anywhere, I was, what I should be doing next. So he told me all about the principle of Taoist return, of things getting gradually simpler. And the orbit was actually the last thing, representing the final blend of yin and yang, to happen after you got all your five elements harmonised and all that. Naturally enough, I asked why the bloody hell, that being the case, it was taught at the very beginning. And he kind of said because it was just handy and connected things. I paraphrase, obviously, long time ago. So it may well be that what we think of as the orbit, if we're talking about having a bit of a nice ongoing flow, may be but a pale ghost of what other people mean by it. But hey, I really haven't a clue.

I'm sorry, I'm really trying to making it clear, but to me, once noticed it's obvious, so it's hard to explain. What could "to" possibly mean there? Making love in the direction of her? Maybe it helps to really split making... ... love. For me that's not two words with one meaning of "the nice action that people do". It's two words with their individual meanings still attached. Could you make sandwiches to her? Clearly not, I hope. You could make sandwiches for her and that's pretty clear. But you can't make love for her and bring it to her afterwards. You have to do it together. With her. Hope that helps. My intention is not just to be pedantic. Ian Later edit: Just thought - maybe helpful to ask: could you make peace to someone, make contact to someone? No, with, each time. And those are pretty much synonyms, to me.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. From my perspective, you cannot make love to someone. It's meaningless, nonsensical. I see that that you use the term to mean taking an active role. For me the term "making love" means something diametrically opposite to what I mean by "having sex". In making love, the literal making, generating, of love, is paramount. But enough. It's a lovely day. I'm going outside to wave my arms. (Also I did not mean to seem like I was criticising you personally. It was meant to sound just like a general example with your name in it. My apologies.)

Here !

Emphasis mine. This is the crux. If a bunch of people got together and built a factory to make the product glunk, would it make any sense to say you were making glunk to your fellow workers? No. And if two people get together to make love with their bodies, does it make any sense to say one makes love to the other ? No. You can only make love, actually produce more love, with someone. You don't need to be perfect, you just have to do your best. Making love to someone is all about the greater glory and satisfaction of Pietro, as established through his delight and hers. Am I wrong?

Strongly disagree, as they say in the surveys. A good 95-98 percent of relationships and sexual interactions, in my opinion, represent a headlong flight from reality, without even the honesty of the cinema, where it's at least evident what's going on. But maybe we have a different definition of "reality". What a wonderful idea for an interminable thread !

I see what you're saying. And I don't disagree that being true yang is a matter of small steps, gradual effort, even trial and error. My problem with Deida is that I reckon he is taking those steps in a false direction, and will never get closer. It's the difference between getting as close as you can and pretending you're already there. And neither man nor woman will give a monkeys about true yin or true yang until they've had enough experience of meeting the false and having their heart broken or body abused to get fed up with it. So there's little danger of virgin death. All I'm saying is that your aim has to be for 100%, and the first step has to be humble, accurate evaluation of where you are now.

I had experience of this just this weekend. And found the same as you: When I'm really tired I tend to be a miserable bastard. But half an hour's practice made a big difference. The danger, for me, is letting the negative voices say that I'm too tired to practice, or that it won't do any good. I actually find, on the contrary, that practice while tired can be very effective, like I haven't got the energy to get in my own way either.

I'm not a very great fan of David Deida, (I think he encourages men to act in imitation of true yang, rather than actually express it), but this point is raised about other writers too. One answer is this: that a woman must keep saying no, again and again, to every wrong man, to every expression of false yang, that seeks her complicity, even at the risk of being alone. This is true yin. Can be a pretty full time job.

Just musing on the recent threads about Taobums and what is supposedly wrong with it all, it occurred to me that a certain amount of people's dissatisfaction seems to be connected with interactions between 17-25 yr olds and, perhaps, 35-45 yr olds. Now I'm generalizing, and none of this will fit anyone exactly, but I thought it might be valuable. Say, for example, you're 17/18, British or American, with an interest in Taoist practice. Means you've very likely spent the last five years rejecting the values of your culture and especially your family. So you come on here and ask a few questions. You're brimming over with restless energy that many of us would give our eye teeth for, and you can barely read to the end of something before rushing off to try it out, at full throttle, for half an hour, and then come back to ask why you feel funny. And some of the older inhabitants get a bit fed up. Why doesn't anybody listen, or show a bit of respect for the wisdom we spent twenty years suffering in order to stumble across ? Well, if you become an authority figure by offering opinons to someone close to 20, you should know what'll happen. Have you forgotten the time when you couldn't bring yourself to do anything unless you were defying an adult in the process? So message to the youth: we (unauthorised speaking on behalf of hundreds!) didn't produce you, we didn't bond with you when you were small and cute and helpless, in short we don't love you like your folks, for all their faults, so we, mostly, with exceptions, will give up on you fairly quickly if you show no signs at all of actually digesting any advice. Message to self and other wrinklies: expect nothing, be brief. If someone's already received some good advice, maybe try leaving it at that. This sounds like I'm telling everyone what to do. Please don't take it that way. Just suggestions.

There a bit of Chapter 20 of the Tao Te Ching which translates something like this: Ordinary people are bright I alone am muddled Ordinary people are scrutinizing I alone am obtuse* Is this an accurate translation? Can anyone offer more / better versions? What is anyone's best guess at a commentary / what it's saying? Bright scrutinizing answers only, please. No riff-raff. * Source: www.Taoism.net and Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths in 2006

Only this translation seems to make this point, which I like. Who this Chan?

I quite fancy being able to click ignore on an entire thread, and thereby have it not come up, for me, in the list of threads. Thus ending up with a front page of stuff I'm into and new stuff only. Is that feasible, geeky ones?

No, but I've heard him described as "the jewel of the Healing Dao", by someone who ought to know. I have a vague memory of a story of him doing a little bit of a fusion course for Michael Winn, and all the participants wanting him to do the rest too, much to Michael's embarrassment. But in short, no.

Reckon that's about where the ineffability kicks in. It seems that the all-that-is cannot be said to be experiencing, because anything it might be experiencing is also it. Just too seamless and non-separate. Like there is an experiencing in the middle without a thing on either end. Aaargh. What do I know? Gonna shut up now.