prince K.

For me three main themes or memes (topics, metaphors) of the DDJ are the root, the wheel (w spokes and the empty hub in the center) and the eternal female/water.

If you are not familiar with this text then I would certainly like to recommend it to you because it is very insightful and practically applicable, too, IMO. It was recorded by an adpet called Shiva nearly 5000 years ago: Vigyan Bhairav Here are some few highlights: Best wishes from K.

Thanks a lot; I am honoured that you should think so! Best regards from K.

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Thank you for the welcome Darin Hamel! I am looking forward to reading your detailed description of your experiences with youthing techniques- from quickly browsing through it, it looks very interesting; excuse my tardiness but I certainly may come back to you! Mal: if more members are desirable then let's certainly leave it- it may give me a chance to have some shadow discussions with myself, in the future (should I ever find out how to log in with those other accounts, too!) Best fortune from K.!

Ok, here I just want to present some quick references and quotes about the 3 components of that symbol from the Daodejing. In the following link you can find many translations of that work, for comparison, I myself recommend Cleary, Henricks, Waley, Yutang and will use Cleary in this post: Cleary translation of the daodejing Here are all translations (scroll down 112 in English alone)- have fun!Daodejing/Taoteking 1) the circle, the wheel Daodejing number 11 (The Tao alikened to the wheel) Thirty spokes join at a hub: their use for the cart is where they are not. When the potter's wheel makes a pot, the use of the pot is precisely where there is nothing. When you open the doors and windows for a room, it is where there is nothing that they are useful to the room. Therefore being is for benefit, nonbeing is for usefulness. 49 (which personalizes the above- meaning its was written for the dauphin, the prince, the coming ruler- think of him (the sage) as yourself) Sages have no fixed mind; they make the minds of the people their mind: they improve the good, and also improve those who are not good; that virtue is good. They make sure of the true, and they make sure of the untrue too; that virtue is sure. The relation of sages to the world is one of concern: they cloud their minds for the world; all people pour into their ears and eye, and sages render them innocent. Consider this: "In relation to its (the Taos) greatness- nothing is outside of it. In relation to its smallness nothing can be contained in it." 2) the curved line the wave= the mysterious female, also: water (to a lesser extent: yin) 8 Higher good is like water: the good in water benefits all, and does so without contention. It rests where people dislike to be, so it is close to the Way. Where it dwells becomes good ground; profound is the good in its heart, benevolent the good it bestows. Goodness in words is trustworthiness, goodness in government is order; goodness in work is ability, goodness in action is timeliness. But only by non-contention is there nothing extreme. 34 The Great Way (the Tao) is universal; it can apply to the left or the right. All beings depend on it for life, and it does not refuse. Its accomplishments fulfilled, it does not dwell on them. It lovingly nurtures all beings, but does not act as their ruler. As it has no desire, it can be called small. All beings take to it, yet it does not act as their ruler, it can be called great. Therefore sages never contrive greatness; that is why they can become so great. Also see 61, 66 and esp. 78: Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcomes the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful. Everyone knows this, but no one can do it. This is why the sages say those who can take on the disgrace of nations are leaders of lands; and those who can take on the misfortune of nations are rulers of the world. True sayings seem paradoxical. This is one of the deepest concepts, no words can suffice it. It is true that all this is more an experiental, practical a pragmatic thing yet its not true that one can not talk of it or talk about it. One can only not comprehend it wholly, in totality with words, that's all. Words, in the Taoist sense, are as true as everyhting else in relation to the Tao...yes, that sounds crazy but its true- it means that ALL IS TRUE- even the most outrageous fantasies, dreams and states: awake or asleep, alive or dead, all in relation to the Tao are the same. Now some consider it the aim of their practice to make oneself congruent with this Tao and to become that Tao oneself. One of the deepest chapters that unites the water/female with the root (the small points) is no. 6 of the Daodejing. Scientists and literary historians also have found out that that is one of the oldest chapters of that work. Got no time anymore today. See you!

Everyone! Everyone is a very good teacher of the Tao- it only depends on your willingness to learn!

I think you are speaking from a different everyday experience. I am talking about maybe eating fast food once a month (as I do). Of course if you are living in the U.S. its much more common and sometimes even difficult to avoid it. Here, in (a lil country in) Europe, one is cheaper off buying fresh vegetables and fruits at a market or even in a supermarket, anyway, whereas in the U.S. its maybe often difficult to obtain those products from malls and large chains- theres simply a tendency for everything to be canned. On the other end many people "supply" their food with various pills and vitamins: what a perversion! Anyway, in my experience, there, in the U.S. only very upper class expensive restaurants have what here, like in Asia, is offered as simple, down to earth fresh food...so basically I think we may be on the same page from different perspectives- what I'm talking about is diversity: it also is, for example, very important to cook yourself and cook fresh food in a wide variety also for your children, because if you are already encountering many different flavours at a young age you will appreciate this wide variety- "store" it- also as an adult, too. I'm esp. lucky there since I traveled a lot also at a young age and am e.g. acquainted and used to Asian food from age 17 (when I first went to Japan- I'm 34 now). Yet if you will only eat fast food (mainly fat, salt and sugar that are very rare in nature and thereby addicting to the human body cause highly desirable due to "genetic" programming) you also wont be even able to enjoy a wider palette or anything more intrinsic and refined. Oh, I just remembered something else, also: its extremely healthy and effective for keeping youth and health to eat lots of raw fish and also occasionally raw meat... Other still "mainstream" hints I have for youth- before I'll start with esoterics- would be "childishness" and levity (+ self irony: not taking oneself too seriously), and also genetic predisposition (though one cannot do much about it directly; only- if one believes in it- pre- and post incarnative selection= choosing where and as whose child to reincarnate...a bit iffy this one maybe) : in my case again my mother has very "young" body mechanics- meaning: fast cell regeneration rates (w/o qi development), looks very young for her age etc.- of course these things are to be seen in connection with and are reciprocally influenced by those other methods, too. p.s. I'm much too lazy to state my opinion about work right now..

I like that answer- you are pragmatic, on point and no fool. Let's be frank: no one has achieved "immortality". Yet: it may be possible to prolong ones life and if one succeeds in doing that one at least would have longer time to study/research or train towards ones larger goal- it also is about a structural change of the body (so I would inverse your graph and start out with the smaller numbers 100 years...ok then 250 etc..). I really dont like the "philosophical" answer about the dual nature of existance, anymore. Yes, its true the Chinese have centred everything about the dual principle of yin and yang and this doesnt lack a certain truth either, yet it is also important to consider what goes beyond that- and that is basically the trinity- because only the trinity projects or manifests new things. (cf. e.g. the obscure Tai Hsuang Ching, or even Hegels dialectic or the Western symbol of the triangle and its intrinsic manifestational power in e.g. evocation- so: creating a balance between two poles is static, but inserting a third agens a peak into them is what makes them evolve what makes them creative, lets them go beyond their inertia- and thats how all development seems to work. (complicated topic here cause theres differing opinions about it, too: I eg believe that this manifestational aspect is a part of the taiji anyhow- while others concentrate more on it and set it as the summa ultima itself, all in all this is only a speculative difference that could be solved when we all are on another level altogether.. I'll also state my take- About the food: also drink lots of water; also definitely eat meat and occasionally fast food- simply because a body that is never subjected to light posions wont develop any resistance to them. But of course eat healthy stuff mainly: ginga, garlic, rice, vegtables, some meat of course etc blah... About stress: I have always tried to avoid working, its unnatural and not recommended. (In all times ppl have noticed that- e.g. the anitque Roman word for leisure was otium; yet for work: neg-otium, and thereby the mere negation of a primal a normal state...also all culture all inventions and civilisations was created by the idle anyway up till recently.. sex, too large a topic dont have time anymore, also no time to look at the other replies (unfortunately), yeah "I dont have time"...if you think that I have work to do youre wrong: I simply want to do other things now- e.g. sleeping or drinking or staring at the moon...thats what I mean by "having no time"..

I'm of course an ignorant fool myself- excuse my drunken ramblings. Respetive the you have misunderstood me though: what I meant was that men like women and even women like women...anyway, it isnt very important obviously... I'll maybe post stuff when having more time- thanks for your interest, Unconditioned! K.

Thank you for the nice welcome, Mal! Are you a mod? I think at my two other registration attempts your mail bounced cause I hadn't looked into my freemail account for a long time so that it was suspended. Would you like me to tell you the names so that you can delete them... I must say I quite like the relaxed and non-commital feel (qi) of this forum. Best wishes form K.

I would like to discuss esp. practice and results here. What has worked for you and what hasnt etc. I am looking forward to the discussion and everyone's contribution! Best wishes from K.

Li Bai is one of my fav. T'ang (Tang? which transcription do you use here?) poets. He was a notorious drunkard- he was so eponymous that even until this day wine bars and drinking dens have been named after him. It is said that he died when drowning in a stream: he wanted to grasp the refelction of the moon in it and fell into the body of water. One of my favourite poems of him is this: Amusing Myself Facing my wine, I did not see the dusk, Falling blossoms have filled the folds of my clothes. Drunk, I rise and approach the moon in the stream, Birds are far off, people too are few. There are very many others that are good, too but I let you find out about them yourselves. find it amazing, btw, that even in translation his wirtings are so intricate- yet in the original they must be even more beautiful cause he also heeded all those sometimes very complicated traditional verse forms! So: kuddos to Li Taibo there!!!

...stems about from the neo Confucian Song era, in its present form, yet can of course be traced back fragmentarily to the Han period. It is not as effective for Western magic(k) btw as other symbols used in a tradiitonal context like the pentagram or the hexagram. Basically it has three major components that can be used to exemplify and deepen ones understanding of the nature of Tao. Those are: 1) the circle 2) the curved line (in the middle), and 3) the points (of opposite colour) in the middle section (the root). They also again coincide symbolically to the picture of 1) The wheel 2) the wave/the (mysterious) female 3) the root All those are even mentioned explicitly in the Daodejing as you all surely know. I will teach you about all of them, cause you are ignorant fools, but I still like you cause you all- like me- have a love of poetry aesthetics and esp. women- even the women! So whatever, for now Im bored by it and wont say more and simply will give you a picture of the well-known symbol before I will lean back and drink some beer (cause I have no more wine):

Well, hi! I like the Tao and the Tao likes me, I guess. The Tao is very en vogue these days in the West cause it corresponds well with our modern relativistic attitude. I can see that, yet I still like it- the Tao- one ought not talk too much about it cause one can't and that's what the Daodejing tells us. So hushhh... edit: On the other hand we still can talk about demons and gods and plants and leisure and luxury...and about *bringing oneself in congruence with the Tao*....yeah, thats what we can do. But to be serious this is maybe already the third account I tried to register here- I always was either too stupid or too drunk or too lazy to do it! Somehow it never worked! Whatever, now seems to be the time- so let's do it! Best wishes from K.