liminal_luke

I believe Master Li and his Sheng Zhen system deserve to be more widely known and talked about here. If you even get a chance to take classes or a workshop with this man -- highly recommended!

If you go to http://www.healingtaousa.com/ and sign up for his newsletter, Michael Winn will give you the link for his book all about the inner smile. Not sure if it´s the one for you Arya, but I don´t think anybody can go wrong with the inner smile. Liminal

Hi Metal Tao, Interesting handle. Metal is the element that´s sharp, cutting. Metal is the element associated with the lungs and large intestines, the organs of elimination. Not too be vulgar, but metal is the element that says, in effect, let´s cut the shit. And that seems to be exactly what you´d like to do. Yes, there are things that are abhorrent and awful in this world and we´d do well to get rid of them. Is hate helpful in that end? Perhaps initially in that it helps us to recognize that which we consider hateful. But ultimately holding onto hate hurts us. It´s possible to forcefully take a stand against terrible things without personally getting caught up in the destructive energy of hate. Tricky, but possible -- and a skill that´s worth cultivating. Which is not to say that we should deny our feelings of hate. Or feel ashamed of them. Most of us have some hate, and it´s good to be aware. Good to let ourselves know what it is we actually do feel. But once we are aware we can let go. It´s a balance, allowing oneself to feel without indulging in and feeding feelings that aren´t useful. Liminal

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Hi LittleOne, I´ve also studied with Michael Winn and find his teachings helpful. You´ll find lots of opinions here pro and con about Healing Tao. Do you do the Primordial Chi Gung form? It´s something that I learned years ago from Michael and am coming back to now. Hope you enjoy Taobums! Liminal

Well, theoretically the private men´s area would be perfect for discussions of semen "retention" and such but, although there´s been plenty of such discussion lately, nobody seems to want to use the men´s room. Maybe it´s an expansive yang thing? I think the chief virtue of the men´s area has been to placate a certain kind of mindset that thinks there´s some sort of reverse discrimination victimization going on if women have a private area and men don´t. Which would be fine and all if it were actually getting any use. If it´s not, I say cut it.

I like Nungali´s image of the Solstice as "still point," and believe this quality of stillness is key to it´s power.

If somebody broke into my house and tried to kill me I wouldn´t play nice. I´d do whatever I had to do to protect myself. Might even use force. There aren´t many, but sociopathic killers do exist, and there are laws in place that attempt to FORCE them not to kill. Why? Because other people have a right to live. If somebody tells me that just because of the color of my skin, or my gender, or whatever that I can´t rent an apartment or find employment or get married, I´ll use the law to FORCE them not to discriminate. It´s the same thing. There are basic rights that should not be taken away from people. And when others try to take away those rights people of decency cry foul. Love isn´t always about passively standing around and letting everybody do what they want no matter what. Sometimes love is tough and mean. Sometimes love carries a gun.

I like flavor so I´m hoping it´s not bad for me.

My understanding is that the energy is stronger at all of these transition points. Energetically there´s more of a pure mixture of fire and water and the neutral chi comes through stronger. I believe that the winter solstice is to the year as midnight is to the day. Stronger energy at midnight as well.

Perhaps I´m overly educated myself, but I tend to downplay the importance of college degrees. Successfully trading currencies, on the other hand, that takes some logic! (Oops, I posted)

Great post Redcairo. Your take on the essential oneness of physical/psychological/spiritual viewpoints really puts transgerderism -- and a good deal more -- in a useful context. I spent much of yesterday thinking about and writing in this thread, and today it´s time to move onto other things. Hopefully I´ll have the fortitude to resist responding to further posts. (I guess you´ll all see, huh?) I enjoy my time here but there comes a point when further discussion yields diminishing returns, and I think I´ve reached it. If there are people reading this thread who are dealing personally with these kind of issues around gender, please take heart. Yes, there is a lot of ignorance out there, but I believe the tide is turning. Love will eventually triumph. It has to. Liminal

Oh my... I think people who aren´t transgender ought not to speculate so much about the motivations or spiritual aptitude of those who are. Ought to perhaps have a little humility. We bums often make very forceful statements, me included, putting forth our viewpoints with great assurance. Yet isn´t one sign of spiritual maturity the willingness to acknowledge how much we don´t know? The universe is unimaginably big, unfathomably mysterious. DreamBliss asked what it means to be crossgender. That´s a very profound question, and one that nobody here has come close to answering.

I guess you lost me Karl. It wasn´t a trick question. In the United States there are "protected classes" and it´s illegal to discriminate in employment against people on that basis. I think that´s a good thing and asked if you agreed. It´s not a trick. You seemed to be saying in your earlier posts that you think it´s OK for people to discriminate. Maybe I should take you at your word, but I think that people who willfully discriminate are mean and hateful people. And despite what you´ve written, I don´t believe you´re a mean and hateful person. I still don´t think so actually, though perhaps someone whose taken on a certain ideology and is clinging to it rather ardently. I was hoping you´d say that you wouldn´t discriminate against any of those peoples. That you believe it´s wrong to do so. Perhaps you´re saying that the laws that are in place to protect people from discrimination work imperfectly. No doubt. You can argue that they are clumsy tools, and perhaps you have ideas that would work better. But I¨m talking about something more basic than that: whether people should be denied opportunities in life because of their gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, and so on. If you think the current civil rights laws are the wrong way to go about protecting these folk that´s one thing. You might be right. I´m not interested in debating that point. The only thing I want to know is this: do you think it´s alright to hurt people? Because that´s what it comes right down to. Liminal

Thanks Sheriff Karl. No, I wasn´t meaning you personally. I mean that nobody has a right to run anybody out of town. Let me see if I understand you. Suppose you´re the owner of a McDonalds franchise... Do you think you should be able to turn down applications from all people who are black, and hire only whites? Do you think you should be able to turn down applications from women, and hire only men? Do you think you should be able to turn down applications from transgender people? I think it´s wrong to systematically exclude these people from possible employment, even if you (hypothetically) don´t personally like them. Do you disagree?

You bet. People have a right not to be discriminated against in matters of employment, rental applications, and marriage regardless of color, creed, sexual orientation, gender, and so on. And if someone says otherwise they should be forced legally to comply. Whether or not you accept me is up to you. But you can´t deny me the right to work I´m qualified for based solely on any of the above. You can´t run me out of town. You can´t tell me I´m not allowed to marry the man I love.

Actually no, I don´t. I phrased it that way -- even though it´s not strictly true -- for rhetorical flair. I wasn´t trying to intentionally deceive, just thought people would take it in a less literal spirit. But for the record, I would not force you to change your views even if I could. Sorry about the confusion.

Oh Karl, I give up. Just one more quick note before I´m done: there are no laws forcing people to accept homosexuality. In some places people are bound to stop discriminating against us in matters of employment, rental rights, even marriage, but nobody has figured out how to legally enforce anything like acceptance. People are equally free to think what they will of transsexuals. If there were such laws I´d gladly use them to get you to accept us, but alas. In fact, it´s now clear that I´m absolutely powerless to get you to change your views by any means whatsoever. Even rational argument comes up short -- this in spite of your obvious intelligence.

Karl, I´m neither transsexual nor a crossdresser, just a garden-variety gay. In my more insecure moments, I´d like to think that I could pass as "straight," but, sadly, few are deceived. So while I´m not especially up on the biology of transsexualism, or the fine points of trans politics or ethics, I do know what it feels like to be hated. I know what it´s live in a community where people think you are evil and bad for something that´s such a central part of who you are. Not fun. So, to me, it seems like basic human decency to extend a little compassion to transsexual people. If they say they were born the wrong gender, and want to take steps to change that, who am I to say otherwise? If they take hormones or get surgery or wear wigs it´s not about me. They aren´t doing it to have duplicitous sex with vulnerable straight dudes. They certainly aren´t doing it so they can make less per hour at their jobs or get passed over for promotions. They are doing it because it feels right deep in their souls. The son of my mom´s boyfriend is transsexual. Born Matt, she´s now Emilie. She told her father that for years she had been hiding the fact that she felt like a girl from everyone. His response? Why couldn´t she go on hiding? Her decision to transition was more about honesty than dishonesty if you ask me. It takes courage to be who you are. So much courage.

Karl, You bring up a good point. Transsexualism brings up ethical issues, issues I haven´t spent a lot of time thinking through and don´t claim to be an expert about. If a transsexual person has transitioned to live as the gender they identify with, then that´s an important part of their life and I imagine that they would, and should, share it with people they are close to, whether friends or sexual partners. I think we agree about this. But I don´t think that simply being trans is about deception. Transsexual people experience their given anatomical gender as psychologically painful, and, in many cases, take measures to alleviate that pain. These measures may involve hormones or surgery so that the gender they feel like on the inside matches their outside appearance. Nobody chooses to be transsexual, but some people choose to crossdress. As I pointed out in my post to Aetherous, those people might be halloween party-goers, sexual fetishists, or rebellious teens experimenting with gender-fluidity. Maybe some few of them are gay men trying to trick attractive drunk heterosexual men into their beds, and, if so, that would be wrong. But that has nothing to do with being transsexual. Transsexual people are not frauds, at least not merely by virtue of being trans. They are people with a painful psychological condition who want to be happy. Just like the rest of us. Liminal

Aetherous, I´m happy to hear your views on the physiological basis of people born with ambiguous gender. Agreed. But don´t you think that a similar physiological phenomenon might be at the root of at least some cases of transsexual identity? I´m not saying that our culture as a whole isn´t getting more fluid about gender as a whole. I think it is and perhaps Karl and you object to that cultural phenomenon. But that´s not what´s going on in most cases when people call themselves transsexual. I could decide to wear a dress and put on makeup for any number of reasons. Perhaps it´s Halloween and this is my costume. Maybe it turns me on sexually. Maybe I¨m rebelling against my parents or think it´s fashionable with the kids at school. Some of these reasons are no doubt silly. Some of these reasons might be evidence of "an unprincipled and foolish culture." We could debate this but, strictly speaking, we´d be going off topic. None of these hypothetical crossdressers-- not the halloween party-goer, the sexual fetishist, or the rebellious adolescent-- are transsexual. Transsexualism is something entirely different. Liminal

Men are men except when they aren´t. This isn´t people "messing with definitions"; it´s a fact of their biology. Transgender may be meaningless to you but it wouldn´t be if you were transgender. I imagine you are a man who feels comfortable with your masculine identity, is sexually attracted to women, and so on. If so, that´s great. Life is much easier that way. But why assume everyone is like you? There´s this whole group of people out there who say that ever since they remember they´ve felt like they were born the "wrong" gender. Sometimes they take steps to correct the problem through hormone treatments or surgery. Again, they aren´t messing with definitions. They simply have a different experience than you do. Why get mad?

Karl, Transgender people aren´t blurring the definition of gender, and neither, for that matter, are gays and lesbians. Or intersex folks. In all these cases, people are just responding to their biology. There are physical reasons that underlie these variations, things that could be seen under a microscope if we knew where (and when) to look. So it´s not simply a matter of people getting needlessly relativistic and fuzzy-headed with abstraction. Perhaps you would prefer to live in the wild west where "men were men," but morality has nothing to do with it. Liminal

Transgender folk suffer from a neurological and/or hormonal glitch in the system. Straight men who put on their girlfriends panties in private are indulging a sexual kink. Drag queens (and kings) just want to have fun. ................................................. Well, at least that´s my current understanding, though I´m sure reality is more complicated than I imagine.

My first introduction to anything Taoist was from a modern orthodox Jew cum anthropologist teaching meditation in Jerusalem. He taught us to hold our hands out, palms facing each other, and slowly move them back and forth until we could feel a "chi ball." Now this chi ball isn´t the same as the pearl referenced in the poem Jeff quoted. I know that. But it´s perhaps where it starts. We can debate about the pearl all day, but why not practice? Practice of any number of chi gung systems or forms will deepen understanding. Liminal