liminal_luke

I appreciate what you´re saying here, and I´d never argue against loving action. The question is, what would truly loving action look like in this instance? I´m not sure why, but for me, this thread has been something of an emotional sandtrap. It gets me worked up. On the one hand, I´ve enjoyed thinking about the issue and formulating my thoughts as best I can. Some fellow bums have been supportive of my posts, and I feel as though some cyber friendships have been built and strengthened. For that I´m grateful. But it´s also been frustrating when I feel I´ve made a point very clearly and a few bums have been unable or unwilling to acknowledge that I might have even the tiniest smidge of a point. I´ve come to recognize that it´s a dead end, that a person could say anything and these bums would continue to maintain that two and two are five. In any real debate, two people have to possess at least the theoretical ability to change their minds. I want to be someone capable of saying...you know, I didn´t see that before but now that you point it out that way I agree with you. Without that, there´s no real debate at all. I like to think that we are all here to learn and grow. But this is a public forum and it´s open to everyone with enough intelligence and impulse control to stay out of the way of the moderators. And that leaves the board open to a lot of less than savory characters, characters whose motive is not, shall we say, spiritual growth. Some of these people might be armchair sociopaths. They might enjoy setting off verbal bombs and watching everyone scurry around defending silly values. Some people see Taobums as a kind of game where they are the cat and everyone else is a mouse they get to taunt and play with. As hard as it is to walk away from this thread, I´ve decided it´s the loving thing to do. I´ve said all I have to say and now I need to take care of myself. I love to have peaceful conversations where philosophical topics are passionately but gently debated, but that´s not possible here and I need to face up to that sad fact. The loving thing to do when you meet a sociopath isn´t to invite him to tea -- it´s to run the hell away as fast as you can.

Hi Veezel, Marblehead really got to the nitty-gritty with this quesion. I´m no Taoist expert but I´ve been around enough to see the variety of motivations bring to Taoist endeavors. You are here -- so something must be speaking to you about Taoism -- but to provide any guidance I think a person would have to know a little more about you. Here are some possible motivations that a person might have. Do any of these sound like you? I want to develop my chi to become an energetic healer. I want to learn a Taoist martial art and become a fighter. I want to learn a qi gong form that will heal my body. I am interested in internal alchemy and want to devote myself to deep spiritual development. I am interested in Taoist philosophy and want to understand the various forms of Taoism in a historical context. I am interested in Chinese astrology and feng shui. This is just a partial list off the top of my head, and might not even include the reasons you´re attracted to this forum. So...can you narrow it down for us? What kind of Taoist would you like to be?

I agree that schools should be a safe and welcoming environment for all students. What´s different about the trans issue right now is that our society is presently in the process of establishing legal protections for transgender people where they didn´t exist before. This is the cutting edge of where we are right now civil-rights wise. The legal protections transgender people are seeking now already exist for blacks, latinos, people of different religious faiths, etc. It doesn´t mean there´s no discrimination, but as a society we´ve stood up and said the discrimination is wrong. That´s something that´s just now happening for transgender people. I agree that there´s less violence against transgender kids than, say, black kids. But that doesn´t mean we should shut our eyes and say it´s such a small problem it´s not worthy of our attention. We need to make schools for everyone.

To my thinking, there are two possible areas of inquiry. The first is scientific. What causes transgenderism? Is there involvement in hormones, early child experience, a babies experience in the womb...and so on. Whatever answers we have so far are likely preliminary, subject to further research findings. The second area of inquiry -- of far more interest to me -- is kindnesss. How can we best treat people with kindness and compassion? Here the path forward seems pretty simple: it takes nothing away from other students to allow a transgender student to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity or to allow the student to play volleyball with other students they identify with. Indeed, it´s a great lesson for those students in tolerance and acceptance. And, for the transgender student, it´s a great kindness.

No specific advice from me as I think it´s very individual and you´ll do best looking around and exploring whatever practices resonate with you. Plenty of threads on different forms of qi gong etc to check out. Oh wait...I guess I do have some advice. In addition to any spiritual practices you might pick, I´d pay attention to the basics: sleep, exercise, nutrition, nature, having a social life, kindness. Best of luck on this exciting new journey.

Thanks for what I take as an honest straight-forward answer, Bodhicitta. Here, in the rather cloistered Daobums community, religious conservatives and objectivist philosophers are in the minority, I grant you. So, in some bizarre twisted way, I can see how they might seem like the underdogs. Maybe I´m stuck in the past, remembering how oppressed I felt as a gay high school kid back in the 80´s. Now we have gay marriage, and it´s a different time. What use is it to even put on a gay pride parade anymore without the protesters? There´s no drama. We´re here, we´re queer...yawn. But no matter how PC things might look at the moment, I can assure you that transexuals are still very much the "underdog" in most of the US. If you´re really fond of individual freedom and against state control, as you say, it´s not necessary to take up the mantle of the religious right just yet.

Bodhicitta, Have you struggled with issues related to gender identity in your own life, or had people close to you struggle? If not, I don´t see what captivates you so about this issue that you´d start a thread like this -- just to stir up trouble? I don´t have any tattoos, and I´m mildly opposed to them. I´d never get a tattoo and don´t see the appeal. But I´d also never start a thread about the "tattoo problem" and link to essays talking about how tattoos are bad and tattood people delusional. I just avoid going to ink parlors and paying for body art. It´s not so hard. What is it about transgender people that works people up so?

Sad proof that belonging to one minority does not magically protect a person against small-minded and bigoted views towards another minority.

It´s usually the job of the princess to provide the dragon.

Here´s some writing I did awhile back relalting to faith and some relationship challenges I was going through at the time... The Appalling Perfection of Everyday Life Here's a scary thought: what if everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be? I've always felt a little flabbergasted by the whole concept of faith. It just seems like a not-so-elaborate ruse perpetrated by mega-church con artists to dupe gullible Gladis and her merry minions into voting against gay marriage, and polluting the earth--all in Jesus's name. If faith means not questioning the judgement of malevolent ministers bent on world domination, I'll have no part of it. As loathe as I am to let go of my antipathy towards the pro-faith crowd and big religion generally, I'm beginning to grok faith in a new way. For me now, faith is the willingness to believe everything is OK. Even when it doesn't seem ok at all, which is to say, almost always. I'm trusting that the divine wanker in the sky somehow knows what he's doing no matter how dismal my personal circumstance. Like Chief Joseph, I've had it with all the fighting. My power in this life is in direct proportion to my acceptance of powerlessness. I surrender to the appalling perfection of everyday life, wrap myself in a sublime peace some call grace, and stand proud and defenseless in the face of a mystery I neither can, nor want to, understand. Jose, please forgive me. You are your own person, and your path belongs to you alone. It's your life to live. Sometimes I feel angry when you hurt. I don't respect your right to destroy yourself, don't see the rightness of your pain. But it's ok now. Be free. You don't have to heal for me, sweet Jose; if you heal, do it for yourself. Joy comes bounding in the moment we so profoundly respect the boundaries between us that, no longer needed, they disappear. May our separateness and togetherness intertwine like the fused branches of two trees in the primordial forest. Faith means knowing it's ok that you feel this bad. You get to feel as bad as you need or want to to get through whatever you're getting through. I can't stop the hurting, but I can take your hand while you go through it. I can continue to be me until you remember how to be you. I want to choose you lover. Even when you lock yourself away from me I want to choose you. Even when, jacked up on hair-trigger despair, you hate us both, I want to choose you. Especially then. I want to choose you when it matters most.

Legislation does nothing to make a person more accepting and loving, nor should it. People ought to be free to be as they hateful as they like -- within the sacred privacy of their own minds. Law rightly comes into play when that hate is acted out in ways that interfere with the freedom and dignity of another person. But that´s not to say that legislation like the Civil Rights Act have no influence on societal norms. Laws both reflect changing societal mores and nudge those changes along. In most places in the United States it´s no longer socially acceptable to be openly racist, and I think Civil Rights laws have something to do with that. Legislation preventing business owners from refusing service to blacks, for example, sends the message that racism is not acceptable. The absense of such laws, on the other hand, give would-be haters a green light.

Yes, it does.

Beautiful.

Bums have reported combining Yi Gong (Sifu Jenny Lamb´s spontaneous movement practice) with vipassana-like mindfulness. If there´s an explicit connection between qi gong and vipassana I don´t know it, but I think the focus and concentration developed in vipassana can serve a person in many realms of life, qi gong included.

I feel the same way. When some of my friends put up flags after 9/11, I was like..."huh?" As countries go, we could do a lot worse, but if patriotism means glossing over the darkness in our history (and present), I don´t see how that can be a good thing.

It´s no fun bumming with someone whose so invested in being right it´s like arguing with a brick wall. There comes a point where further engagement in conversation is just an exercise in masochism, a point that I reached some threads ago. I for one am walking away from the Karl sandbox. About damn time.

Old River, I enjoyed reading your story, especially for how it showed your fundamentalist friends in such a human light. So often, when I meet people like that, I forget how we all have our own personal Katrina.

What if your heart tells you to rent a certain movie which it turns out you´ve already seen and in your frustration you post a question on Taobums about the nature of heart knowledge and twenty-four posts later you come to understand so much more than you did before....was your heart really wrong?

By suggesting that the example of racism I gave was an exaggeration, here.

Not everywhere in 1994, no. But historically, in some places in the South, yes. Everywhere or close enough to everywhere to have a traumatizing effect on a generation. You might not be denying racisim exists, but you seem to want to minimize it, and I am not sure why. What use is philosophy and so-called reason if all that thinking leads us to look the other way when a fellow human being is made to feel like a worthless animal?

Karl, If you prefer reality to imagination, here ya go. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/25/us/denny-s-restaurants-to-pay-54-million-in-race-bias-suits.html?pagewanted=all Denny´s paying out $54,000,000 in damages for refusing service to blacks in 1994. I asked Dustybeijing to imagine but if you prefer to examine the historical record, be my guest. In 1994 I was a white dude living in relatively liberal Portland, Oregon. I wasn´t particularly attuned or sensitive to racism, and things didn´t seem so bad to me. But for a black family in Mississippi in the 50´s? Different story.

Oh boy. It´s relatively easy to get behind your example because white people are not systematically discriminated against. Just one shop, right? Fuck em. They are only harming their own business. But now imagine you´re a black person and it´s not just a single mom-and-pop business, it´s Denny´s all across the country. Imagine that everywhere you go in your town you can´t order breakfast?

I´m not sure whether it´s true or not, but I think I saw Kumbhamela video footage of Hindu mystics being buried alive for not-sure-how-long and emerging from the earth just feeling just fine.

I haven´t done researched any studies or performed any statistical analysis, but, in the great Daobums tradition, I won´t let that stop me from putting forward some opinions. (1) Most seriously religious people aren´t violent. (2) Most violent people aren´t seriously religious. (3) My-religion-made-me-do-it is a time-honored excuse.