Walker

吕祖百字碑注解 一、序言 吕祖纯阳真人，系唐德宗十四年，岁在戊寅年四月十四日巳时诞生。生时异香满室，天乐浮空，有一白鹤飞入母寝帐中不见。仙鉴云：吕祖系古圣王皇覃氏临凡，治世二百五十载后逊位，入太白山养真得道“证位天君”。奉元始天尊谕，于唐德宗贞元十四年四月十四日，降生于河南府蒲坂县永乐镇吕宅，大振玄风。父让，唐元和进士，海州刺史。母王夫人生吕祖，幼名绍先，长名岩字洞宾，鹤顶龟背，虎体龙腰，翠眉凤眼，修颈露颧，鼻梁耸直，面白黄色。左眉角有一黑子，如筋头大，后变赤色，两足纹隐如龟坼。 吕祖云：“桑田改变依然在，永作人间出世人。”拜师正阳真人钟离权，受师点化云：“黄粱梦觉，忘世上之功名。”受火龙真人郑思远的天遁剑法云：“宝剑光辉，扫人间之妖怪。”吕祖誓言云：“不度尽世间人，决不飞升大罗天”，非虚语也。作百字碑二十句，真言妙蒂，普度世人。 震阳子遵照吕祖百字碑之奥旨，注解成白话解释。使修士阅之，悟道成真，达到吕祖度世救人之婆心，普度有缘。今完成注解，愿力以偿，是为序。 震阳子自序 二、序言2 济世度人匡正人心，乃道门之本旨。历代诸圣先真，或显化以宣讲道德，或入世以指点迷津；扶正祛病，成人善果；俾芸芸众生，遵之以道，行之以轨；利人利物，利国利民。唯愿世人抱道修身，归真证果；修性养命延年益寿；福于家国，兴我中华。远溯道祖，继而孚佑帝君，近而三丰祖师，慈悲为怀，普度含灵。数千年来代有传述。中以吕祖圣迹，流布民间，迄未稍泯。其入人心之深，可见一斑矣! 吕祖出身世家名门望族，代有善举。师承钟离，得其亲传。证果之后，誓愿度世，不作自了之汉。或行化市肆，劝善规过，启迪人心；或著书通俗，引导士庶，修身养性，以达化人度世之旨。百字碑即度化世人之作也。书中文字虽浅，却是义理深藏。字不过百，句仅二十，却将修真证道全部内容及进境层次概括无遗，诚可谓丹经之简明教程也。细观书文全貌．即知吕祖用心良苦。既虑修士挂一漏万，有误证道；又思修炼匪易，唯恐修士误入旁门。祖之思虑如此，盛德跃然纸上，实乃感人肺腑。即此一端，亦可知帝君慈愿之厥伟厥宏矣。 吾师震阳子，素怀悲悯之心，常存救度之志。多年来，为弘扬正道、度化世人，注疏道德真经，阐释道祖垂训。更从自身体验，著作“道学皈元”一书，揭示性命双修之本义。今更解注“吕祖百字碑”，直指丹道修炼之秘密，尽泄修行悟道中阴阳、药物、水火既济等炼丹之奥秘。修士刚志持之，何患功果不成也?至于长生驻世之道，亦尽在其中矣。 余等尝蒙吾师教诲之恩，始于大道略识之无。唯资质愚陋，为学日浅，何敢言道。今承吾师赐示师之纶著“吕祖百字碑注”一书，何幸如之也!恭读之下，如饮甘露，心神豁敞，性天明亮，几疑证道在即、玉清不远。敢谓吾师之注释已尽发吕祖之微旨、丹道之妙义矣!若修士同仁，反复熟读，深究其内涵、明其义蕴，切实修持，定感吾师“吕祖百字碑注”之作，实为证道之梯航、成圣之宝筏也。深望同道珍重视之、行之! 俗家弟子：玄照、仁义、崇宗拜序 一九九五年一月二十二日 三、吕祖百字碑 养气忘言守，降心为无为，动静知宗祖，无事更寻谁。 真常须应物，应物要不迷；不迷性自住，性住气自回。 气回丹自结，壶中配坎离，阴阳生返复，普化一声雷。 白云朝顶上，甘露洒须弥，自饮长生酒，逍遥谁得知。 坐听无弦曲，明通造化机，都来二十句，端的上天梯。 此是正文一百个字。 四、吕祖百字碑注解 于甲戌年农历七月十一日（乙亥日）寅时，震阳心诚意正，坚决将百字碑注解成白话解说，志心称念吕祖宝诰：玉清内相，金阙选仙，化身为三教之师，掌法判五雷之令。黄粱梦觉，忘世上之功名，宝剑光辉，扫人间之妖怪。四生六道，有感必敷，三界十方，无求不应。黄鹤楼头留圣迹，玉清殿内炼丹砂。存道像于岩祠，显仙迹于云洞。阐法门之香火，理玄嗣之梯航。大悲、大愿、大圣、大慈、开山启教、灵应祖师、天雷上相、灵宝真人、纯阳演正警化孚佑帝君、兴行妙道天尊。 将宝诰背诵读熟，时时转念，大有灵感。只要做善道之事，所做必成，必能随其心愿。以下逐句解释： 1.养气忘言守 “养气”，养的是元始祖气，又名曰：“浩然正气。”既然要养此浩然正气，首先要把心静下来，参禅静坐，越自然越好。闭口藏舌，舌尖顶上腭，此即“忘言”之妙用。为什么要忘言呢?不忘言则开口神气散矣，极为重要的是“守”之为妙。试观守字之意义。上有宝盖，下有方寸，方寸者，即方寸宝地也。此宝地非上丹田，亦非下丹田，而是中丹田黄庭中宫也。守此中宫方寸宝地，与《道德经》“多言数穷，不如守中”之义理相同。因此，这句丹语注重在“守”之为妙者欤。 夫“守”之诀窍，内含性命双修、取坎填离、水火既济、阴阳交媾、婴姹结合、天地交泰之意。夫天地乾坤得交接之道则天长地久；世间男女夫妇得交接之道则延年益寿、在世长年。道经云：“人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然”，是至理者也。 2.降心为无为 人之心属于离卦，为火，火炎上而好飞，所以人心好动。例如，长春真人作的《西游记》，将人心比作猿猴，专门好动不好静。“孙悟空”大闹天宫，盗老君仙丹，偷王母蟠桃，大闹龙宫要宝，得了定海神针即金箍棒，能大能小(比人之真阳外肾)，大闹阴曹地府阎罗殿，勾去了自己及其猴属的生死簿，一切等等。这就说明人的心动时多，不是想这就是想那，没有清闲的时候。所以正文说要“降心”，只有降服了人的后天之心，道心才能复活呢。人的道心复活才能“为无为”，“无为”即无所作为。 经云：“有为者动，无为者静。”只动不行，只静也不行，只有动静结合才是清静无为的大道呢。人心者识神也，道心者元神也。所以修道之士，首先要降服人心，只有降服了人心，始可为其无为大道。无为、无所作为，就是清静无为大道。必须心平气和，精神专一，保养太和真气。先降服人心，忘言守中，静之又静，虚极静笃，始可得到清静无为元始大道。 然而只凭本身元神天性大慈悲也不行(此只是性功)，必须分辨出真伪。喻如唐僧取经去西天，没有火眼金睛的孙大圣，何以能取得真经来呢？到西天路途遥远十万八千里，而孙行者一个筋斗就十万八千里，其意义说明了什么呢?这就说明了，人去掉十恶八邪立见我佛如来，而我佛如来分明就是人之道心。诗云：“佛在灵山莫远求，我佛就在汝心头。人人有个灵山塔，好在灵山塔下修。”如此说来，我佛远吗?不远，汝心即佛，佛即心。只要你去掉十恶八邪，自然立见我佛如来矣。要想立见我佛如来，请先把心猿降服，自然为无为矣，清静无为元始大道得之矣。 3.动静知宗祖 动静二字是老祖宗给的，我们再以动静传给子孙万代，代代相传。“动静”二字，其意义大矣哉。经云：”天清地浊，天动地静；男清女浊，男动女静。降本流末而生万物”，这岂不是老祖宗给的吗?歌云：“行着妙，说着丑，惹得愚人笑破口。”其实动静二字，动不能常动，静不能常静。经云：“清者浊之源，动者静之基。人能常清静，天地悉皆归。”所以清静者，大道也。 修道用功之人，常常清静，使天地之正气完全归纳于我身，久而久之，自然开灵机、长智慧。天地即我，我即天地。阴符经云：“宇宙在乎手，万化生乎身。”这也就是“人能常清静，天地悉皆归”之意。既然知道动静二字是老祖宗给我们的，就应当保持动静，化为清静，复还归于元始祖炁。常清常静，常清静矣。身在道中，道在身中，元始祖炁永远在我身中。如此这样，则金丹大道吾得之矣，这样才真能知道动静就是老祖宗矣。 4.无事更寻谁 这个无事并不是没有什么事，而是在心平气和之时，扪心自问我要干些什么?为了说明这句话，还得用上句说的，“动静知宗祖”借以承上启下。我没有其他事，那么我还找谁呢?这些问号总结一下的答案那就是还得找老祖宗，溯本追源，为所无为，参玄悟道，做那个清静无为大道。这个答案我认为极其正确，干脆放下一切，参禅静坐，追求真常清静无为大道。 吕祖头一句就说了“养气忘言守”，为什么要返复不断地说呢?只有反复说反复讲，扎扎实实地记在心中与脑海里，就自然会悟到真常之道。悟者自得，得悟道者常清静矣。吕祖他老人家谆谆教导我们，要将起始的四句真言作为中流砥柱看待，也就是看作照明灯塔，是此百字碑的纲领。 “养气忘言守，降心为无为，动静知宗祖，无事更寻谁。”希我同道修士，志心称念，则福生无量天尊，有不可思议之功德矣。 5.真常须应物 “真常”的大道理，必须在日常生活中去体验，比如应酬答对、交接来往、一切人情等等。古云：“练达人情皆学问，落花水面亦文章。”如果不练达人情，不懂得和人交接来往，在世面上过正常生活那是不可能的。修士云：“人道不全，天道远之。”这就是说，用人间的大道理来衡量尚不合格，何况修成天理的大道呢! 以上是在世俗上的说法，再谈谈修道内功。经云：“湛然常寂”，才是真常大道呢!又云：“真常之道，悟者自得。得悟道者，常清静矣。”这是引用《太上老君说常清静经》之言，借经证实“真常”之道。那么“须应物”呢?真常大道内功来了，必须懂得“应物”，此则内隐修真天机。为什么要讲得这么神秘呢?为的使学者注意“应物”二字大泄天机。这也就是上句说的无事更寻谁，去找老祖宗无极大道。即虚之极、静之笃，活子时要来，不老不嫩时必须应酬这个真阳之物。 这个“物”非同一般之物，而是先天至尊至贵的无价至宝。此物无形而有形，有形而不可见，修成无价之至宝，所以称之至尊至贵。亦名“圣胎成就，身内有身，神成真圣，真圣合太虚，太虚合真空，真空合虚无自然，虚无自然是元始真一，元始真一是吾真身也。先天而生，生而无形；先天而长，长而无体。虽无形体，大道常存，永劫不朽不坏，万圣同居。”这是引用《元始天尊说得道了身经》堪可证实此句“真常须应物”，越引用经典，越是证实了这句真言矣。 6.应物要不迷 上句对“应物”二字的重要性业已阐明，这句说的是“应物要不迷。”吕祖他老人家告诫我们应物的重要性，千万不要迷误。应物时机一有迷误、稍一差失，则走丹漏炉、前功俱废，悔之晚矣。这句真言不只在修真丹道上重要，即便在世法处事上，也决不要差失迷误。谚云：“当事者迷”，当事迷误则有差失，事后悔之晚矣，“应物”着迷可把人坑苦啦。世上有等败类分子迷花乱酒，这些酒色之徒不堪一提。所以丹道“应物”二字，道俗一理，分顺逆。诗云：“应物之基静参玄，道俗一理分圣凡。顺则生人成凡胎，逆则修仙结大丹。”其意是阴阳交合，水火既济，混融于中宫，谓之五行俱全，会合凝聚为一家，自然畅美矣! 气入脐为息，神入气为胎，胎息相合。此即太乙含真气，龙虎交媾产生药物，是即“应物”也。喻如凡人母亲有胎，自觉中宫有物，在丹道当用神意火符烧炼方得不散。此即神气交合，这就是应物。每一日得一交即得一物，状如黍米，还于黄庭中宫，自可延年益寿。以火候煅炼三百日足，如龙有珠，可以升腾。诗云：“如人有内丹，在世必长年。应物要不迷，修成大罗仙。” 7.不迷性自住 凡人在世如能不迷而常清醒，不被尘情所迷惑，方寸不乱自有一定主宰，这才叫真正的不迷性自住呢，此外说也。 内修丹道，如在本身活子时一来，凡人便起淫心欲念，稍一动摇，精趋熟路，此即迷也，落后天矣，修士可不慎哉。应当重整刚志，痛改前非，这才称得起是一个修道之人而不迷矣。只有不迷，保住真宝之“应物”，才可能使我的元神真性自住于中宫，使神凝气结、温养圣胎而得到真宝至尊之应物呢。 此法号曰“太阳炼形”，以冬至阳生为起始炼功(即本身之活子时，比作冬至)，在日常生活中可以忙中抽闲即可用功。要把腰挺起来，端然正坐，默运心火之母炁，自然随气贯满周身及四肢。鼻息绵绵若存，此即用之不勤，丹田中之五气氤氲，达于遍体四肢百骸。肾之真炁，炼骨如毛之轻，可以乘风驾雾。肝之真炁，炼筋如玉，可以驰如奔马之速。心之真炁，炼成血白如膏，可以盈耐寒暑。肺之真炁，炼就肌肤如雪之白，斯时也可以换骨易形。脾之真炁，炼肉坚实如石之硬。化气如金，始曰丹成。五气朝真，炁聚而不散，五气炼形凝而不衰，号曰形神俱妙与道合真，寿与天齐，斯可谓之“不迷而性自住”矣! 8.性住气自回 性者天性也，即人之元神也。元神天性属于离卦三。离卦纳己，为己土，为自己，也就是中央的己土也，就是自己的真意。把自己的真意、天性、元神三者合一，总名曰性，住在自己的心中。夜眠居心脏，觉醒时入于脑海泥丸宫内。人之脑海好想事，好动、好飞而炎上，所以称之曰离，为火，号曰天性，丹名曰内丹，其根源居心。既然修道，必须使之心火下降，心火下降自然肾水上升矣(此内含性住气自回之义)。 气者命也，即人之元精元炁，属于坎卦。坎卦纳戊土，为阳土，就是人之真意。把自己的“真意、元精、元炁”三者合一，总名曰命，住在自己的肾宫。夜眠睡熟，阳动，容易泄漏走精，属于坎水、润下。修士应注意：及时清醒过来用真意收回，不使之外出。用意领使回归体内中田，号曰外丹，与元神凝聚为一结合，名曰神气凝结，成为刀圭，入口，神化无方。 诗云：“丹成五气自芳芬，炁真方可会元神。炼形换骨非凡客，自是长生物外人。”长春真人曰：“金液大还丹”，其中纯阳真炁长生，是为后天气足养先天真炁，已是陆地神仙、在世长年。古今上真，有纯阳真炁升入四肢便可升举。号曰太阳炼形而化真气，自然形神俱妙、与道合真。随五气而换骨易形容，自然能避寒暑。昔日衰朽之姿，炼之丰润而端正；从前枯槁的形容，炼得强健而红润，何止返老还童而又身轻骨健。 乘风驭气，驾雾腾云，号曰南宫飞仙，是尘环中的羽客。虽未离壳升仙而已升腾自在，当为地仙者、上流神仙之下品，皆因丹田五气炼形，贯通四肢百骸是也，炼形之功不为小矣。是曰“性住气自回”，性命双修其功巨也，可不尊乎? 9.气回丹自结 当然气回就是不使之外泄而出，俗曰漏精，把元精收回。元精元气我之命也，气回就是我命由我自己掌握，这就是精足气满用真意收回，和自己本身内丹(即自己元神天性真意)结合，是名曰性命双修丹自结矣。亦名神气交合、三田既济，就是把顶中的神水下降，丹田真气上升，号曰水火既济。一撞入脑，名曰肘后飞金精。本法用阳时中刻，平坐伸腰，闯三关，闭耳闻，神水下降；伸腰举腹，鼻引长息，默运心火，一撞三关，金精入脑。补之数足，面红肌白如膏，身轻。金精入脑，紧闭两耳(耳通于肾也)，并入天宫(泥丸也)，化成金液。下降如淋灰相似(去浊留清也)，下降入咽，伸腰默运心火，自上腭承下，清凉味美，神水满口，润下黄庭，号曰金液还丹。当此上腭有甘美水下降入咽_，暗引丹田之真气上升，而以鼻息引其气遍满四肢周身。斯时上水下火．是为真既济。诀云：“顶神水，入中源，丹田真阳返上田。水火相交为既济，守中飞升大罗天。” 长春真人曰：“喻如人之真意属土，炼之为瓦，瓦可千年不坏；肝胆属木，神火之母，炼而为炭，炭可年久不坏。”人欲修长生之道，无出乎既济真意之法，是乃还丹炼形之法同用之功也。那么金液还丹，化丹成金；太阳炼形，形如美玉。还丹未还之际，炼形未起之时，水上火下，相见于重楼之下。而曰既济之时，当用地天泰之卦，即子后午前是也。每一次一粒如金粟，颗颗还于黄庭。每颗生金光一道，意运出放皮毛之际而金光满室。何止长生不死，是欲弃壳升仙之时也。所以正文云： “气回丹自结矣。”诗云：顶中神水降中田，肾宫真气向上翻，龙虎交合凭真意，水火既济结大丹。 10.壶中配坎离 壶中者，喻修士参禅静坐如壶。谚云：“袖里乾坤大，壶中日月长。”斯可谓壶中配坎离，日月寿长年矣。长春真人曰：“两曜铸成七宝殿(曜：日月阴阳也；七宝殿：人体精血炁髓脑肾心)，一渠流转化琼浆(活子时之真阳也)。水火都来相并间，卦后变成地天泰。阴阳升降两相兼，水火交加入下田。既济无差真气足，金丹一粒万千年。” 此言金液还丹，太阳炼形，三田都既济。匹配坎离是为长生不死之法，故曰中成之法。须是小成见效，相续而行之，行之无差，见验自速。若人不行小成法，直要中成而求长生不死，不止见效迟而又徒劳心力，虚度时光。还丹，而神水不下；炼形，而丹火不升；既济，而水火不交。反谤神仙虚语、不死为妄言，殊不知行持过越者也，世修犯此弊者多矣。若人龙虎交而为精，火候足而为丹，用金精补某脑虚，使其还丹变成金丹，用丹火炼其真身，又使既济之法相兼行，此六法善不可加矣(再比此好的没有也)。 若不兼行此六法，速要烧丹纯阳之气，炼气成神；速要炼之真灵，炼神合道，此是金液还丹。太阳炼形，三田既济不须行矣。此三诀古今上真，往往万劫秘传中成之法以还丹。炼形住世者，盖以留形住世，非金丹不可延年，非炼形不可换骨，非既济不可不死。又以无丑陋真人，少衰弱神仙。不易形而留俗状，不既济而留凡骨，将来弃壳自离，超神亦迟矣。若还丹炼形既济之后，一百日静中四象周匝，内观五藏(气)纷纭。二百日目见金花，体有圆光，青气出顶，紫雾盈空。三百日神灵知前后事，真气可干外汞，体轻可履风烟，骨健可齐天地。若见此境而疑是为小验，志诚行之，神异不可具载矣。此真作到壶中配坎离达到日月长矣。

Because the coronavirus epidemic that originated in Wuhan continues to spread, I wish to share a simple immunity-promoting technique with members and visitors here. Coincidentally, I learned this incredibly simple and easy method from a student of Andrew Nugent Head while visiting Hubei province, the origin of the current coronavirus epidemic, in 2016. Andrew Nugent Head learned it from Dr. Xie Peiqi (解佩啓), a master of Yin style baguazhang. The Yin bagua practitioners were in close contact with Forbidden City doctors during the late Qing dynasty, and a great many wonderful medical and health promoting techniques were absorbed into their teachings. This is one of them, and it is something that apparently Dr. Xie would make some new baguazhang students do for an hour a day before training anything else. Andrew Nugent Head said he sometimes used to do it for two hours a day. The fellow who taught it to me practiced it while living in a very polluted Chinese city with bitterly cold winters. He and his wife did this method for an hour each morning and neither of them caught a single cold in two years. After learning this method 3.5 years ago I have not gotten a single cold or fallen ill in any other way. I do not think you need to do it an hour every day to get results, and in fact I almost never do it any more. After doing it for 20-40 minutes a day most days of the week for about two to three months, I could feel that my body had reaped the effects of this method, and I was able to feel that I no longer needed do it with regularity. I now only occasionally use it if I feel that I have been affected by pernicious wind-cold qi and need to, in the words of Chinese medicine, "clear the exterior." I would estimate I have done it only three of four times in the last year. Here is how to do it: 1. Stand with approximately feet shoulder width apart in a stance that you find comfortable. Relax your body. Your knees should be straight but relaxed. This is not a horse stance, going low will not help. 2. "As though" there were a ping-pong ball inside of your belly button bouncing constantly up and down at a fast pace and guiding the shaking of the rest of your body at its pace, shake your whole body. I say "as though" because this is not a visualization; the ping-pong ball image is just a suggestion to the body. Do not think of this as "filling the dantian with qi" or anything like that; do not strive to imagine a clear image of a ball. It's just a feeling. You can also think of shaking a big sack of rice to get the grains to settle. The most important thing is relaxing and letting yourself get a chance to know what feels right. 3. If you wish and your environment permits, after you have done this for 20 or more minutes, you can let out a few loud "ha" sounds emanating from your lower abdomen. Three to five is of these sufficient; do not do more than that. 4. Close practice as you please. Best to stand in stillness for some time after you stop moving, until your body feels settled and normal. Then go about your day. Important notes: -If you have time, I recommend doing this 30-40 minutes per day when you begin learning. This will give you enough time to get accustomed to the method and get the desired result. What is the desired effect? After about 20 or 30 or 40 minutes you will clearly feel your whole body has become relatively "open and unobstructed" (通). This is an unmistakable sensation. For me it feels like a shock wave that emanates from my lower abdomen region and then hits the entire surface of my body at once; making the "ha" sound with your belly after 20 minutes can help to trigger such a reaction, but the sound is not necessary. When you shake unto the point of "open and unobstructed" you will feel subtly blissful and get a sense of "that's good, I'm finished now." Important: For the purposes of strengthening the immune system against external pathogenic wind-cold qi (and "breaking" pathogenic qi if you have already succumbed to a small amount of it but are not yet sick with a cold or worse), it is crucial that the wave of "opening" reaches the exterior of the body. This will happen naturally, though, and you must not try to force or guide it. -Your shaking frequency can and will naturally adjust as you practice. That's great, let it happen. It's vigor and up-down range may also naturally change, also great. However: do not sway left and right. Do not wobble or roll your head. Your body and head should basically stay upright, and your posture should be pretty straight. There should be no twisting or spontaneous movements except for small, subtle ones. This is not zifagong and if you trigger zifagong you will get different results. -If parts of your body feel sore during the shaking, try to let them naturally "connect" to the origin of the shaking in your lower abdomen. Feel the connection and observe it. Do not force anything. -Always keep your feet entirely flat on the floor. No jumping, tiptoes, no spontaneous qigong. You need to keep rooted. -Again, try to do 30 to 40 minutes the first many times until you are totally clear about what the "open and unobstructed" feeling entails. Once you understand this feeling, you can just stop when you get that, which might only take you 15 or 20 minutes. -This method is especially good to do if you feel you were exposed to wind-cold and you have the sort of feeling that you get right before you succumb to a flu or cold. If you use this method at this moment, you have a high chance of preventing the onset of a full-blown cold. Unfortunately, if you already have a full-blown cold, I have no idea whether or not this method will help at all (again, I haven't gotten one cold since learning this). -Going overboard past the feeling of "open and unobstructed" resulted in dry stool for me. No need to do this to excess. I think I saw a video where Andrew Nugent Head said that old men in the parks in Beijing in his day would do this until they got "that feeling" and then they'd stop and as, "ah, great, 'open and unobstructed,'" and then start training other things. -Never do this method right before lying down to sleep or rest. Only do it when you will remain upright and reasonably active afterwards. This is because doing this method stirs up a lot of "gunk" in the body, which then needs to naturally mobilize to the places the body will put it to help it leave the body (remember, for example, that lymph fluid only moves if your body moves, and cartilage only gets nourished and cleaned by intercellular fluid if you move). My friend said he once ignored this warning and did this for an hour one morning before deciding to go back to bed. He got back up an hour later feeling awful. -A very influential qigong master in China in the 80s and 90s included this method in his foundation practices required for all beginners. His idea about why it is so useful is very interesting, so I'll share it here. He pointed out that if you put iron filings on a flat surface and then cause that surface to vibrate at a steady rate, the iron filings will spontaneously organize into regulated patterns. He theorized that the various qi, electrical, and magnetic fields of the human body react in a similar way to shaking/vibrating. In other words, doing this practice takes a chaotic, disturbed "pattern" of qi and then "reorganizes" it. This, he postulated, makes it much easier for the body's natural defenses to operate, and has the effect of strengthening the factors that taken together are what Chinese medicine calls "defensive qi" (衛氣/weiqi). Given that I have not succumbed to wind-cold in several years and this method protected my friends in a very polluted and densely populated city in the same way, I think there is a lot of wisdom in this statement, even if it is just a hypothesis. If anybody has any practical questions please let me know and I will try to answer. Best if you try it a few times and then ask questions if any arise. Let us avoid theoretical and speculative discussion if possible, in order to keep this thread simple and accessible for people hoping to improve their immune systems. 祝 身體健康

Post #999. For the real. When I first relocated to Beijing from one of the outer provinces in 2009, Muslims were a highly visible presence there. Rarely did I walk far in the streets without seeing men wearing kufis on their heads. Elderly Muslim men with beards were a common sight in a country where very few non-Muslim men wear beards, and Muslim women whose identity was made clear by the way they kept their hair covered could be seen in all neighborhoods. Although the places where a non-Muslim like myself (who, of course, doesn't attend mosque) might see the most Muslims at any given time were of course the often-delicious halal restaurants all over the city, the fact is that in Beijing at that time you could and would bump Hui and Uighur Muslims almost anywhere, almost every day. They were a part of the greater community--a minority, yes, but a well-represented, widely-dispersed one. Sometime in 2009 or 2010 a Han friend in Beijing introduced me to the term "hamigua" (哈密瓜), which means "cantaloupe." The best cantaloupes to be eaten in China are those grown in Xinjiang province, which is also famous for its delicious grapes, nuts, and many other foods. For some reason, however, the word "cantaloupe" had become the racial epithet du jour for Mandarin speakers who wished to disparage Uighurs. Several times I was warned, "those cantaloupes are all pick-pockets, be careful if you see them." I found the racist term disgusting, and I did not tolerate people using it with me, nor did I use it myself. It was an undeniable reality in those days that if a person came up to you on the street and surreptitiously offered to sell you a likely-stolen fancy cell phone secreted away in one of his jacket pockets, far more often than not he had obviously Turkic features, and could be safely assumed to be a Uighur, or perhaps a Kazakh. Of course, it is a bit unfair to say this, because not all Uighurs and Kazakhs are Muslims (even if they are born into Muslim families), and the guys who ended up in the criminal underground certainly cannot be waved around as representative of Muslims as a whole. Additionally, a long history of ethnic violence (some going both ways) and systemic racism that--like it does in all countries on earth--deprived its victims of important life opportunities may also have pushed some of these men into crime. In any event, most people in Beijing I knew spoke to about these issues really differentiate between Muslim and non-Muslim Uighurs. They were, in daily conversation, lumped into a single category, just as most of us foreigners with European features were simply assumed to be Christian, end of story. Although I had heard the term cantaloupe and even heard some Han Chinese people in Beijing tell me that some landlords would refuse to rent to Uighurs, I did not really have much of a concept of there really being serious anti-Muslim and/or anti-Uighur sentiment in China until the summer of 2010. One day in July of that year I noticed a foreign-looking young woman (I couldn't really place where she might be from, but I did not think she was Chinese, including Uighur) on the Muxidi Station subway platform, looking at the system map. I thought she was pretty, and recently out of a relationship, I walked up to the map, pretended to myself be reading it, and struck up a conversation in English. The young woman replied to my questions in perfect English and soon enough told me that she was Egyptian and visiting an aunt who lived in Beijing. We ended up riding the subway together and had a long, pleasant conversation before we parted ways. We first exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet soon for dinner. We hung out a few nights later and discovered we were both on our way to study medicine, me TCM, and she western medicine. This mutual interest deepened our connection, and sooner or later she asked if I remembered where she was from. I replied "Egypt," but she smiled shyly and said that had been a lie. "I'm from Xinjiang," she told me, "I'm a Uighur. But my aunt warned me when I came to visit her in Beijing that there is a lot of racism against us, so she said since I speak good English, if people ask where I'm from I should lie and tell them I'm a foreigner. That's better than running the risk of something bad happening to me if I meet somebody who discriminates against us." I was very taken aback by what she told me, but given some of the prejudiced things I'd heard before, not totally shocked. She asked me to help her keep up her charade if we bumped into anybody else, especially locals, and I agreed. We hung out several more times, and as I got to know her I realized this was a woman of impeccable character. The daughter of an internationally-educated western doctor who remained in his native Xinjiang to serve the Uighur community, she fully intended to follow in her father's footsteps. She told me also of her uncle, a once-handsome man who inexplicably caught an unknown disease that caused him to waste away over the course of several years. Finally the family found out, only because of a news report, that her uncle had been sneaking away to give blood way more often than was healthy, because he had a rare blood type. He had kept this a secret for years, despite the toll it was taking on his health. As for her plans, my friend, who was so young, intelligent, multilingual, energetic, and beautiful that she could have very realistically dreamed about a cosmopolitan life... Well, there was nothing in that which could seduce her. She saw the Uighur community in Xinjiang as suffering deeply due to a lack of highly-trained medical professionals (in addition to a host of other socioeconomic and political problems), and she fully intended to put her shoulder to the wheel in order to heal the sick. As we met only a month and a half before I was to move to Shanghai to begin medical school, her depth and determination made a deep impression on me. We made sure to keep in touch via text message when she finally left Beijing a few days later. After arriving in Shanghai in the fall of 2010 I quickly became so consumed with first-year medical school (a mix of TCM and western medicine, taught entirely in Chinese) that I did not have an awful lot of time to explore the city like I had Beijing, much less devote my mind to thinking about social issues. However, I did notice that, just as in Beijing, Muslims--often with Uighurs' Turkic features--could be seen all over the greater Shanghai metropolitan area. Just as in Beijing, they appeared to be a minority who were firmly integrated with the city at large, whatever problems might have been lurking under the surface. In early 2013 Xi Jinping took power. In the first year of his reign a sort of enthusiasm was palpable in the air. The reason was simple--he had promised to tackle the CCP's tremendous internal corruption, which in so, so many ways was the bane of common people's lives. In the first year of his reign, there was not yet any reason to believe that the purges of corrupt officials were really purges of his political rivals. Furthermore, the internet still remained as open as it had become under the previous premier, Hu Jintao, with people enjoying the truly unprecedented right to express themselves, with relatively (by CCP standards) light censorship on blogs and microblogs, all well the newly invented WeChat on newly available smart phones was keeping people connected in new and exciting ways. There was, to those prone to getting caught up in political moments, something of a "spring is in the air" feeling at that time. The general enthusiasm that buoyed people through the 2008 Olympics, the recovery from the fiscal crisis shortly thereafter (which involved building amazing high speed rail trains), the Shanghai World's Fair in 2010, coupled with the opening of the internet, increasing internationalism, a new consumer culture (TaoBao! Ubiquitous shopping malls!), and of course economic advancement that touched most people lives quite directly... These things had greatly improved national morale, and a new boss in town who promised to sweep out the corruption from within his own party? Life was looking up! I honestly can't really remember just when the proverbial skies began to darken, but they did quite quickly. I remember the moment when I could tell that the "good old days" of Hu Jintao's (partial) opening of China to the world during the Olympics were definitely over. A wealthy employer and then patron of mine had invited me to visit his city in Shandong province, where he put me up in a hotel. I had a large, fully furnished room and on my first night he accompanied me with my baggage and then sat for tea, which we poured while sitting on easy chairs at least six meters away from the door. I had the last room on a long hallway. The halls were empty of people, and while the door was open, everything was heavily carpeted and we were already speaking fairly quietly. There had been no reason to close the doors as we made small talk. However, at some point my acquaintance began rather thoughtlessly repeating the basic "boilerplate" about what an amazing man Xi Jinping is. I remember, distinctly, how he even went so far as to wax poetically about how Xi has the "facial physiognomy that shows he is destined to be an emperor," which is actually a fairly common thing to hear in China, but it was the first time I could remember hearing it from a person whose opinion I took rather seriously. I heard my friend out politely and then interrupted and said that I had also heard an increase in misgivings about Xi in recent months, especially with regards the way in which his purges of corrupt officials seemed more and more to be purges of political adversaries. My friend suddenly became very solemn and made a gesture with his hand for me to stop. Remember, we were alone in this room, but he looked all around us, then stood up, walked several meters to the door, peered into the still-empty hallway, quietly closed the door, and then returned to his seat. Leaning forward towards me, he gave me a grave look and said, very quietly, "yes, well, it is true, there are in fact many people who say Xi Jinping seems to be turning into something of a tyrant." My acquaintance's exaggerated caution would have been funny had he not been being deadly serious. I had never seen this man, a rich CEO of a large company with thousands of employees and hundreds of storefronts, offices, and plants around China ever display anything other than a penchant for jolly bombast and, generally, rumbustious overconfidence. To see him become so cautious--so fearful--even when nobody could possibly have been near our room... It was a shock, and it reminded me how much danger lurks in PRC citizens' lives, even if they happen to enjoy a real degree of wealth, power, and prestige. Following that day, as the months and then years wore on, anybody who was paying attention could see that Xi Jinping was avidly clamping down on freedom of expression and anonymity on the internet, freedom of reportage in the news media, freedom of cultural expression in entertainment media, freedom of opinion and research in the educational arena, freedom of religion, and so on and so forth. The creep gradually picked up speed, until, within a few short years, the enthusiasm of early 2013 had been replaced by the feeling that a new, quieter, more digitized sequel to the Cultural Revolution was coming into being. I suppose it was about 2016, when the mass surveillance "panopticon" and the early announcements of the coming Social Credit Score became widespread knowledge, when the unabashed praise for Xi Jinping disappeared from most of my Chinese acquaintances' lips, and when ever increasing numbers of friends--foreign and local--returned to quietly-but-openly expressing their disgust for the CCP. The "world's biggest mafia" and the "world's biggest cult" are both terms I learned through repetition from PRC citizenry. Some of the things I heard from people who suffered personally due to the party were lurid and terrifying, but I have already spoken about those in the "Chinese Communist Revolution" thread and they are not the focus of my writing today. No, the focus of my writing is still ethnic cleansing, and it is time to return to the opening of this piece, where I spoke about how common Uighurs as well as Hui Muslims were in both Beijing and Shanghai in 2009 and 2010. In the fall of 2013 I returned to Beijing to live, and the Muslim presence was still pronounced. However, on October 28 of that year a car crashed into a crowd in Tiananmen Sqaure, killing two bystanders. The driver was said to be a Uighur Muslim man and the attack was said to be a terrorist attack. I have no reason to doubt either claim. Half a year later there was another attack attributed to Uighur Muslims, this time in Yunnan Province, when knife-wielding individuals killed about thirty people. It was, to be sure, a terrible incident, and the country was paying rapt attention. I did not follow this news terribly closely, but I remember that alleged terrorists were found in or chased into caves in Xinjiang, and when they holed up inside, they were toasted with flame throwers. Many Han people I knew praised the brutality with which the alleged terrorists were crushed, no differently than I am sure many people in countries all over the world rejoice when terrorists (alleged or actual) are eliminated with extreme prejudice. I also started to notice an increase in the general willingness to speak of Muslims, especially Uighurs, in incredibly disparaging terms--terms which most people in America would easily identify as racist, but which teachers and elders of mine in China insisted were simple good common sense. Many times, for instance, a middle-aged baguazhang instructor of mine with a love of holding court with his students would go into anti-Uighur digressions. Whenever it was, ever so gently, suggested that he was being too prejudiced, he would quickly defend himself with the following reasoning: "No, no, no, I'm not anti-Muslim, you see. We've had Hui Muslims in China for centuries, they're just fine, they're grateful to be here and they don't cause troubles, it's the Uighur Muslims who are ungrateful and dangerous and backward, they're different. If they would just be like the Hui..." Ah, yes, the model minority... The Chinese government, as the world news often gushes, does things quickly. And it was with the quickness that the population of Uighurs began to plummet in Beijing. I truly do not know they way in which they were, well, "dealt with," but by 2015 or 2016, it became a rarity to see kufi's and women's head coverings anywhere outside of a now greatly-reduced number of halal restaurants or neighborhoods like the old part of Xicheng District of Beijing, which held at least one large mosque with a long history. I do not know if ethnically Hui Muslims, who generally look very similar to Han people, were removed or if many of them decided it would safer to stop wearing their Muslim head wear and beards (I know now that there have been major crackdowns on Hui populations, but I don't know about in Beijing at that time). But it was clear that Uighurs had plummeted in numbers, such that by 2016, if I saw a Uighur-looking person on the street, my mental reaction would be one of, "whoa, how'd you get here?" In my medical school class I had classmates from both a Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, both of whom have Turkic features that meant they were often asked if they were Uighurs (a question I've gotten once or twice, actually, but only in low light with a heavy hat on). They sometimes expressed nervousness about the increasing anti-Uighur sentiments and said they had become quick to tell people they were foreigners, and not from Xinjiang. Early in my days back in Beijing, in the early autumn of 2013 (before the aforementioned attacks on Tiananmen Square and in Yunnan), my western medicine friend from the subway platform passed through Beijing. Having not seen one another in three years but having stayed in touch through our phones, we were happy to have the chance to catch up at last. She told me she had completed a portion of her medical studies in China and was planning to continue her studies in the US, where the quality of medical education is miles above what it is in China, but she remained as adamant as ever that the was no way she would remain overseas to work. She intended to come home soon to be close to her family and to provide service in Xinjiang. After that lunch we stayed in touch for awhile, but the rigors of my studies and the vicissitudes of life caused me to go quite some time without sending her any messages, nor receiving any. I must confess, out of sight, out of mind. I cannot remember when the first rumors of the internment camps in Xinjiang started to filter into my life in Beijing--it may have been 2016, or 2017... I don't care to check here when they were supposedly established. What I can say for certain is that in the summer of 2017 a good American friend of mine, a freelance reporter whose stories have been picked up on the Reuter's wire, in Newsweek, and in other publications, went to Xinjiang to report. Much as you will see if you watch the recent Vice documentary about Xinjiang, he described being followed and harassed everywhere he went, as well as forbidden from visiting most of the places he hoped to go. Needless to say, he did not visit any internment camps. But he described a highly disturbing world to me, in which checkpoints, x-ray scanners, and surveillance reign. A world where Uighurs cannot even go into the equivalent of a 7-11 without passing through metal detectors and showing ID, and where nobody dared to speak to him. His conclusion--and this is not a man prone to hysteria--was that the concentration camps almost certainly exist (to any who still doubt this, recall that after denying the camps' existence for a very long time, the Chinese government finally did an about-face sometime later; it then fully admitted that the camps do exist, but then said that they are "free, voluntary career training centers"... of course, with extra guard towers, massive steel doors, and razor wire thrown in for free, as well.). My friend's return from Xinjiang sent a tremendous jolt through me. It is a jolt that has not worn off, and it carried two major elements. The first was a huge amount of worry about the fate of my lovely, noble medical student friend. The second was shock at the way in which I had witnessed the slow disappearance of Uighur faces in specific and Muslim garb in general from the streets of Beijing, a city I lived in for more than five and a half years in total. Quietly, but at surely as clockwork, Beijing had been "ethnically cleansed." The people had gone away in a trickle or a rush--I never saw how--and been forced to return to their "hometowns" (the localities where their hukou, or legal "household registration" documents said they belonged), where they were placed first under the watch of their local cadres, before one million or more were forced into internment in concentration camps. Oh, I'm sorry, "voluntary free career training centers." Right. Disgusted with myself for having been out of touch with my friend for so long while all this unfolded (although, to be fair, I was finishing fucking medical school and working), I gave her a call. Her phone was disconnected, and many repeated calls since have never brought me luck. Of course, I do not conclude from a single disconnected phone number that my friend was or is interned in a concentration camp for Xinjiang. It is possible she continued her studies in a US medical school, and remains safely overseas. It is possible she returned to Xinjiang, where she suffered a "lesser" form of imprisonment than concentration camp, such as "merely" having to stay in city where her hukou is registered, perhaps in one of the homes where one million CCP cadres are sometimes sent to live, sleep, eat, and of course, snitch. In any case, I know that my friend is certainly considered high-risk by the CCP's metrics. Multilingual with overseas experience, the algorithms that decide whether or not a person is dangerous would certainly flash huge warning signs next to her name. It is difficult to imagine, if she has remained in Xinjiang, that she has not in some way been placed under special surveillance if not into prison. And, even if she has somehow lucked out in that way, her entire province has been turned into a gigantic, open-air prison. The possibility that somebody I know well--somebody as gentle and kind and big-hearted and honest as her--has been swallowed into this gray mass of Chinese Communist Party racism, hatred, arbitrariness, oppression, and utter disregard for the fundamental goodness inherent in humanity. Ah, I tell you--that feeling is very different from the feeling you get when reading about "ethnic cleansing" in a newspaper, or seeing it depicted in a harrowing film. Now, again, I do not know that my friend did not "make it out alive," and manage to stay in the US during and after her medical training instead of falling into the CCP's ethnic cleansing machine. But, shortly after failing to reach her on the phone in 2017, I realized it ultimately made little difference. There was no way I could look for her, even using the internet, without putting myself in very real danger of imprisonment, and possibly making life worse for her and/or her family if I use her real name to try and find out her location and get in contact with her using electronic resources that have been set up by Uighur activists outside of China. The moment I register with their sites to try and find my friend, my name and hers go onto lists that are very dangerous to be on. I still have one last obligation in China, and I cannot risk imprisonment or any form of legal trouble there (nor the trouble that those who support me there may face if I fall foul of the so-called "law," which of course means the caprice of the brutalitarians in charge). Furthermore, I am not even sure if it would not bring holy hell down upon my friend, for instance, if she is in a concentration camp, and it comes out that there is an American using the internet to try and turn her disappearance into an "international incident." My hands are truly tied, and I have no idea what, if anything, I could possibly do. To watch the Muslims disappear from Beijing between 2013 and 2016 was to have a preview of a second wave of disappearances, which was much more visually pronounced, swift, and brutal, perhaps because it involved millions more people. It was a the removal of migrant workers and millions of people without Beijing hukous who set up thousands and thousands of businesses around the city and held down jobs that made the city function. In 2016 and, even more so, in 2017, their lives were turned upside-down when entire streets filled with hundreds (yes, hundreds!) of shops would be emptied of people, gutted such that their contents littered the streets, and then bricked up. Usually this would take three days to accomplish, often involving violence against people, and always violence against the fabric of communities. This mini pogrom of the working poor was well documented by photojournalists--the interested can find more information and photos on Google, easily. During this wave of forced removals I lost yet more friends and acquaintances, including an incredibly generous and kind qigong doctor with a small clinic space who, one day, was gone. I used to just drop in on her and her staff, and she taught me many things and gave me tremendous help with my health. Having no idea that this wave of removals could have affected her, I visited her neighborhood in 2017 to say goodbye to her before leaving the city. My jaw dropped when I found every last storefront for block after block, hundreds of small businesses, already bricked up and painted over. No trace was left of the former inhabitants. Goodbye. That summer as also the summer that the dissident writer Liu Xiaobo died. He was turned "free" from political imprisonment with late-stage liver cancer. He asked to go to a German hospital, but his request was refused, and he died in a Chinese hospital one week after his so-called release from prison. That news brought me utter disgust, having just graduated from medical school. I knew well how the hospitals functioned and how communist cadre hacks behave. I assume, and to this day do not change my opinion, that the doctors would have been told explicitly: do not save this man's life. Not that they could have, with his cancer being in the advanced state it was, and him being in generally terrible health after years in and out of prison. All of the above events were enough for me to decide to end my ten years of living in China. I have just written an awful lot, but it is only a tiny smattering of the ugliness I have seen there, so, so, so, so, so much of it directly attributable to the Chinese Communist Party. I share all of this today with you all, after spending an entire Saturday in ugly flame wars with two men who lost all standing in my eyes for carrying on here like shitposting, childish pro-Nazi or pro-KKK or pro-Bolsonaro trolls: "SirPalomides" and "C T." I spend several weeks away from this board when the two of them recently developed the habit of repeating China Daily-esque (in the case of Palomides) and Global Times-esque CCP propaganda on this board. I observed the two of them for several weeks, as well as myself. I initially thought to just walk away and say nothing, but my heart would not sit in peace. I finally decided to come back here today, and to devote a whole Saturday to dragging their ugliness to the fore and meeting it with as much vitriol, ire, and scorn as I can muster in words, to make it be known: The game they are playing here, as two little internet boys who have no real China experience, is the worst and most egregious chronic abuse of free speech that I have ever seen since I started reading this website in 2006 or 2007. Deliberately and intentionally and with wrath and harsh judgement I played their game all day today, knowing that I would not and could not hope to "win" or to convince either of them of their mistake. Rather, my goal was to make sure they fucking NOTICE me, and to make sure that my stain follows some of the threads they have turned ugly and foul with their pro-totalitarian antics in recent weeks. I wish to leave an imprint on both of their severely malfunctioning minds, regardless of whether or not that imprint will have any chance of improving their lots; I also wish to leave an imprint on the threads where the two of them have made an excessive stream of excuses for the Chinese Communist Party, which has been directly responsible for so, so much death, torture, havoc, trauma, rape, forced migration, and general loathsome mendacity on this planet for so many decades. But the real point of coming back here today was not those threads which took up most of my day, but this one. Having shown you all today that I am capable of spitting some of the most vile and insulting language from my lips, I wish to show you my other side--to show you a piece of my soul, and to let you know why it is I felt it important to set aside the time and raise the internal fire needed to spit in those two boys' direction with my words all day. The above piece of writing, imperfect those it is (I do not plan to proofread it), comes directly from the heart, and reflects my absolute best attempt to speak to you all with honest, circumspection, and the deepest possible care. That is a short, small, humble-sounding, almost mockable word--"care"--but it is at the core of all of this writing today. There is nothing I can do to stop Palomides and C T from their sick pro-CCP water carrying, much less can I stop a single cadre from taking part in that murderous machine, much less can I talk Xi Jinping out of keeping countless souls locked away or threatening the country I live in and where so many of the loves of my life also live with military invasion. I can do none of that. But I can show you what a heart of a person who truly gives a fuck looks like, and while you may not believe me I will tell you a truth: this heart that I have shown you today, belongs to a man who has lived and lived powerfully--a man who has, many times in his life, made very tangible choices in the real world on the basis of the moral compass which is now on display. My caring is not limited to a jumble of impassioned words on some third-rate, has-been internet forum for weirdos. It is lived daily. It is reflected in enacted behavior. It affects the world. Or laugh, and disbelieve, and hit the "laugh" button, whatever. You don't have to believe me. If you have read this far, I have made my imprint upon you, and how it will one day unfold in your mindstream is beyond my control, although it is somewhat in yours. When I finish writing this post I will wash my hands of it and walk away, but one thing will have changed in my life: I will have taken my objections and made them public, and that is the least I can do. Anyway, as I said above, I have never felt so deeply disgusted with this place as I have since Palomides and C T began spitting CCP propaganda at us. But I have wondered about the point of this site's continued existence for quite some time, and concluded in recent months that it now does more harm than good for cultivation, and well as cultivators. I was wondering if I should leave, and in my weeks of silence, I decided that the time is beyond ripe. Things which begin must end, and it is time for my membership on this forum to end. I wish that all of us may develop wisdom, insight, compassion, the ability to see our mistakes and make strong vows never to repeat them, and good health and longevity--provided we use our added time and energy on this planet to be of true service to our fellow beings. I have spoken all day at and about a pair of fellows who are truly bums in my eyes, so I owe you all a final thought on the other part of this website's title. Here it is: Since I was 17 years old, I have been so fortunate as to have met a steady stream of highly-experienced, deeply wise, and tremendously generous teachers from the older generations in Daoism as well as Buddhism, but especially Daoism. To meet even one Daoist who has been on the path of real practice for decades is a true blessing. To meet not one or two but many in a couple of decades is a blessing. I have spent thousands of hours of my life in the company of such people, and thousands of hours of my life practicing on my own. I have also spend, at minimum, hundreds of hours of my life reading this website and participating in threads. I can tell you that of the tens of thousands of posts I have read here, possibly not more than a handful come close to rising to the level of what can be transmitted if you make a real connection with a truly experienced, living teacher in the Daoist tradition. I do not simply believe that TDB has a problem. More generally speaking, I have concluded that online forums full of anonymous and semi-anonymous strangers are not a place that is well-suited to the sharing and learning of real Daoist teachings (the reasons are many but not hard to guess). Thus, my message to those sincere seekers is: Keep seeking, and seek to meet real teachers in real life. Beware of what you find here, because even what is offered from those who have touched the real is never more than partial at best, and those who have touched the real here are vanishingly rare. And while most people here are fairly well-meaning, the deluded are many, and the dangerous are not scarce either. If you feel strong affinity for the Dao, you will almost certainly need to find it in person. Good luck with that search, and with whatever comes next. Word is bond, Peace out, And fuck all yall who would praise a totalitarian. Fuck you two times. And may you fall face first in dog shit. .

I suppose writing lists like that is easier than thinking. And I suppose tacking your sense of self onto the side of the CCP is easier than feeling lost in the universe. After failing to grasp Christianity, Daoism, magic fox religion, and Buddhism... You have found your true faith. Emperor Xi 萬歲，萬萬歲 Hallelujah, by and by.

From today: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/25/coronavirus-exposed-china-history-racism-africans-guangzhou

I don't know, I'm sorry! To all... I can offer no more help on this thread. I hope it is helpful to you. I feel I have explained everything that I can in sufficient detail and with enough thoroughness. I wish you good health.

You did not read the article I posted, or you would realize it is a reaction to the link you just posted. You are a lazy hack posing as an intellectual. A eunuch of the mind looking for an emperor to kneel before. Go to a shrink.

Nope, I mean the "六經," which I just saw are referred to on a Wikipedia page as the "six levels." The "six meridians/levels/jing" are a complicated construct of the body's qi that is discussed in extreme detail in the Treatise on Cold Damage aka Shanghanlun. I don't know much about Wim Hof's stuff, but my simple answer would be that since Wim Hof has a method to allow the body to deal with the cold in ways it cannot if one has not learned the method, then many of TCM's basic ideas may not apply to him and his students. As for whether or not what he is doing will affect his and his students' longevity in any way, well, we can only wait and see. You're most welcome. It sounds like you're on the right track! I have to disagree somewhat with Starjumper. Please check what I said about about 散/scattering. Generally speaking this method should not lead to exhaustion and/or qi deficiency in any way, but it does have a somewhat scattering effect, and I have not found it to be qi building at all (nor did Dr. Nugent Head describe it as such). Keep it up! I'm afraid it will probably not have any effect on your tinnitus.

You post a sick picture. You get called on it. You accuse me of derailing the thread. The saddest thing of all is that you think this is all about you kid. Really, you're not shit to me. I coming at you because you happen to be the person here who is acting like a CCP lackey. If it was anybody else (or if it was somebody hammering on about the greatness of Nazi Germany) I would be doing the exact same thing. Stop acting like a sick troll. You're in another thread talking about Gnostic Christianity, yet elsewhere you're going on about Buddhism, and you post that picture up there? Something is wrong in your heart, and you are sorely lacking in 德.

Gray Zone articles tend to read like they were written by a halfwit or quarterwit Noam Chomsky. Noam Chomsky is brilliant for many reasons, and one basic reflection of his brilliance is his ability to wrap his mind around huge amounts of seemingly contradictory pieces of information, and then paint a coherent picture. This is why Noam Chomsky can clearly see that US hegemony is violent and brutal and responsible for a massive amount of human suffering, but he can also see the many positive sides of the American experiment, and clearly (and often, and vocally) point to the fact that a world hegemony run by the CCP would be extremely dangerous for humanity. The Gray Zone writers, unfortunately, only get the part about US hegemony being "bad," and therefore end up writing poorly-disguised apologist pieces that toe the line of various unsavory characters around the world. An excellent analysis of The Gray Zone's poor journalism can be seen here. At the end of the day, it might be worthwhile to read the above piece to learn more about the ways in which Falun Gong plays with the media and, indeed, issues its own propaganda. It might even be worthwhile, on the basis of that Gray Zone article and others, wondering whether they have not greatly exaggerated or even fabricated the organ harvesting allegations (although, as the Washington Post article directly below that Palomides shared states clearly: the Chinese government has long been harvesting organs from executed prisoners, so... Well, people can make up their minds about whether or not this happening to Falun Gong, too, or "just" other prisoners). Even so, as nyerstudent pointed out above, even if we totally disregard all of the Falun Gong organ harvesting allegations as 100% false, we cannot discount the well-documented fact of brutal, systematic oppression of Falun Gong--not to mention countless other groups in China, ranging from the Tibetans and Uighurs to dissidents of Han ethnicity to human rights lawyers to journalists, and so on and on and on, on terrible, bloody list. People should definitely click the link to this Washington Post article. It confirms repeatedly that the PRC government in fact does have a longstanding practice (possibly recently reformed) of harvesting organs from executed prisoners. Yes, the end of the article does call Falun Gong claims into question. But it does not paint the rosy picture of a non-violent, loving, "better than America" CCP-led China that Palomides has been obsessively hawking here for weeks.

What in the fuck is wrong with you? Why the fuck do you take pride in a murderous regime that views human and civil rights as a form of decadence gaining in power and influence? Why the fuck do you think that mass imprisonment, mass slaughter, and mass torturing of their own citizens + Tibetans is somehow an improvement over the US hegemony? Why do you lack the extremely basic facilities for nuance you would need to understand that one can wish for the United States' brutality to go away without becoming a fanatical cheerleader for another, equally-but-differently-violent empire? Why the fuck do you take pride in offending people here with your CCP propaganda? You're fucking sick in the head, kid. I see you no differently than I would see some pro-Klan or pro-Nazi webwarrior on Stormfront.org. Go fucking look in the mirror.

I am glad to see a few new and old faces popping up here to speak up in the face of the deeply disturbing trend of constant pro-CCP drum beating that has been going on here for the last couple of weeks. Exactly. And if you read the Washington Post article Palomides posted above, you in fact see that the reporter makes no denials of the fact that the regime was regularly harvesting the organs of executed prisoners, Falun Gong or otherwise. According to that article, the attempt at reforming this travesty did not even begin until 2007. By the Falun Gong had already been suffering terrible oppression for an entire decade. The reforms took ten years to reach, supposedly, some sort of conclusion, during which time how many prisoners' organs would still have been harvested? And should we really believe that there are not still "loopholes?" Very, very few people who live in and/or closely study the PRC (I include Chinese people in that statement) tend to take government statistics seriously. I don't know why we would start now. But, but, but, As a thought game, supposing that not Falun Gong member's organ was ever harvested and sold, does that not make the wholesale oppression of this religious/qigong group a gigantic crime against humanity!? I am amazed that Palomides cannot wrap his mind around this question. Well said! All well said! I heartily second your comments.

Yeah! Serves people right if the CCP imprisons and tortures them by the thousands for staging peaceful protests in the 1990s against a regime that less than 10 years prior rolled tanks through Tiananmen and killed several thousand college students! Serves. Them. Right! By the way--just in case you get it twisted, of course, no Falun Gong members were ever arrested or tortured and June 4, 1989 was just a normal day, nothing happened, other than typical CCP greatness, because that's what happens every day!

Meanwhile, Palomides will work for free for the second wealthiest and most powerful state on the planet! Way to go to bat for the underdog, big boy! Hey--where's C T to give you your "like"? You're needed over here @C T

Ah, Palomides the young goat fellator is back, and his like-button lackey C T is already here on his coattails. Note that before his new post Palomides hasn't contemplated (or even tried to reply to) a single thing said before, nor does he open links that were shown to him and consider contrary evidence. Nope. Over 90% of the content in posts he disagrees with he simply ignores, and then he swoops in with a graphic or a new twist on his old argument ("The CCP can do no wrong!"). Months ago I could already tell that Palomides has strange dickrider tendencies. He had one of my quotes in his signature here for months, which was creepy, but I ignored it. I thought he was maybe just lonely and lost and is looking for the big brother he never had. Didn't wanna make fun of him and make the newby feel unwelcome here. Back then I didn't realize he's not looking for a big brother, he's just looking for Big Brother, 1984 shit. He's that snitch-ass 窩囊廢 from The Matrix who asks to get plugged back in. He's that dude who's hoping he can one day submit his post record here on a job application for some CCP propaganda bureau bullshit, hell, maybe even make some money during lockdown writing editorials for the Global Times if he keeps this up long enough. Damn, that's the lowest kinda dickrider there is--Palomides is straight up signing up to be a simpering internet eunuch to snivel about how great Lil Emperor Xi-xi is ten hours a day. Damn, son. At least you got your own dickrider though, or rather eunuch-cloaca-rider, in the form of C T. ("LIKE!" "LIKE!") But I thought you said on here you had a wife. Does she approve of her husband being glued to the screen all day to slaver over the grand accomplishments of the Chinese Communist Party? She even know what you're doing? And you know what's extra deranged about the logic informing Palomides' new paragraph, above? He's actually trying to play it off like Dr. Li Wenliang was "just" called into a police station and forced to sign a confession for having a conversation in a private WeChat group for doctors. Oh, we get it, yeah--that's normal, that's a sign of a functioning, non-totalitarian society where human and civil rights exist... Getting yoked up by the police for saying the wrong thing online in private discussion groups. Sounds GREAT! (right C T? Yeah! Yeah! "LIKE!") Even more deranged is the fact that up there Palomides also tries to establish false equivalence between the first Wuhan doctors being dragged in by the thought police and what goes on in the Trump administration, whining "this is not plastered all over western media," when in fact every single day the western media is FULL of scathing exposes and op-eds and chyrons about all of the calumny and authoritarian creep in Trump's Oval Office. Whereas, in the Chinese media, which is "surnamed Xi," there is almost nothing of the sort, and when it does appear, it is gone within hours, and plenty of times the person who wrote it disappears into "administrative detention," too. What kind of sick, craven precum baby of a man actually toes this line? What the FUCK, son? What the fuck happened to you, kid!? And sadly, he actually gets worse. Check it: As always, as always, Palomides (and C T--don't worry I ain't forget you, kid--"LIKE!") remains willfully and intentionally blind of the simple fact that: In America, where he has his constitutional rights, he can sit on this open message board with no government monitors and no worries about his words ever resulting in his arrest, criticizing Trump (which is fine by me, lest there be any confusion) and praising the CCP (you already know how I feel about that)... But in the People's Republic of China, which he fucking loooooooovvvveeessss, if he was to get on any message board and say 1/10 of the things he says about Trump about Xi Jinping, he'd literally be getting a knock on his door from the same sort of internet-monitoring goons who scooped up Dr. Li Wenliang and the other doctors. I'm legitimately baffled yall... I didn't know the strongman-fetish could get this bad! What the fuck happened to you, son!?!?!?!

Case in point:

Really scary, but also understandable that people fall into this trap. The CCP likely spends more money on any single day in pursuit of this goal than most of us will ever earn in a lifetime. To me, C T and Palomides' redeeming factor right now is that they, too, may simply be "going through a phase." May it finish soon. I actually know a wealthy family, very well connected politically, who are involved in these international Han chauvinist identitarian efforts with PRC backing. They have members scattered around the PRC, Taiwan, and the US. Recently they'd been deeply involved in the presidential election campaign for Han Kuo-Yu, who is a Taiwanese wannabe populist strongman with blatant affection for the CCP (thank Guanyin, Laozi, the magic transforming fox genies, the UFOs, and the CIA that he was trounced in a landslide!). Some of the members of this politically-connected family always struck me as off, but certain things were never said aloud in my presence. That was until January of this year, when a member of the clan who grew up in the US came and found me to divulge, literally in tears, the sick schlock he has to listen to some of his fanatical aunts and uncles rant about. We're talking about, literally(!): "Hitler was a great leader, did what he had to do to maintain power, nothing wrong when countries do that stuff, you need strong leaders like that;" " doesn't matter if it's the CCP, the KMT, or anybody else--as long as we Han people rise and the Americans fall, we'll make our ancestors proud and usher in a new world;" and "the opiate and synthetic drug crises in America is Chinese people making opiates and killing stupid Americans, it's revenge for the opium war, at last!" Whenever he argues with them they tell him to shut up and call him a stupid, fat American who's Mandarin isn't good enough for him to have an opinion. Sickos can be found everywhere. There are no pure races, in any sense.

Lol, don't know whether to laugh or cry about that story. But still, I'd rather deal with a Scientologist than Palomides. At least the former won't try to tell you the concentration camps in Xinjiang are "voluntary free education centers."

It is time to talk about forgivable and unforgivable ignorance. The forgivable: At about this time in 2017, whilst I was still living in the capital of the so-called "People's Republic" of China, I made the acquaintance of a bright graduate student studying management who frequented the same noodle spot I did. We occasionally chatted when our mealtimes happened to overlap (sharing dining tables with strangers is the norm in China, and it's a good way to meet people), and one day we got talking about his heavy course load. As is generally the case in higher education in the PRC, this student was very busy because in addition to his major's courses he also had to attend nightly, mandatory political education classes. Naturally, the themes were Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, and the new-fangled Xitlerism. He was quite surprised when I told him I'd studied Marxism in college and in fact read Marx on my own in middle school. He asked me what I thought of Marx's writings and I immediately told him that I have a deep appreciation for Marx's discussions of alienation. As soon as I said this the young man stared at me blankly--"Alienation?" I repeated the Chinese word for it but he was still perplexed. When I tried to describe it it didn't ring any bells. I began to wonder if maybe I had the wrong word, so we got out our phones to check our dictionaries, and there it was, the word I'd just said. The man made a puzzled expression and looked back up at me, saying, "we've certainly never discussed this word. This is a part of Marxism?" Now it was my turn to be surprised, shocked even. To study Marxist theory for years for several hours a week and not encounter alienation? This is like studying Buddhism and failing to encounter the doctrine of reincarnation. The graduate student, being a sharp fellow, insisted that I explain the gist of what alienation means in Marxism to him. When I was finished, he could only shake his head, still not sure if I hadn't just made the whole thing up. I was flabbergasted, but then I thought about it. Of course the Marxism classes in the PRC cannot talk about alienation. Alienation to an extreme degree--far more extreme than was likely imaginable in Marx's own day--is forced upon the "People's Republic" by the false communists in charge. To educate the people in such a manner as informs them that they have been hoodwinked, how, and of what, that would be to initiate the ruling clique's own demise. And so, of course, they learn a castrated version of Marxism, and when ardent youths who despite these disadvantages nevertheless grasp the essence of Marx's teachings and stand up in attempts to put them into action, they are now crushed. (I predict Palomides will be too much of a gutless hypocrite to acknowledge the contents of this link in any meaningful way). The unforgivable: Being an educated adult in a country with free, unfettered access to information and still actually believing that the CCP operates in a manner that is not deeply antithetical to the tenets of Marxism, and on that basis carrying their water zealously on this website (Another link Palomides will lack the guts and discernment to avail himself of, despite it's being recommended reading from TDB's owner: Chuang Journal, devoted to in-depth and scathing Marxist critiques of the PRC under its current leadership)

Thank you 🙏 Populists' racism games are multilayered. Easiest to spot, is, of course, blatant blame (ie, Nazis against Jews). Dog whistling is harder to see, but the world seems to be getting better at it. But then there is also "nothing my adversaries say about me is true because they are racist"--there is now an army of PRC overseas embassy officials tweeting day in and day out in this strategy. Of course the irony is that they cannot even legally use Twitter while at home, where all adults are infantilized by the regime, but they wield it abroad to defend das Vaterland. Indeed the CCP would love it if they could somehow paint all anti-CCP Taiwanese and Hong Kongers as somehow racist. That is difficult, since both places are majority Han. One strategy seems to be to paint TW and HK anti-CCP sentiment as either the work of the CIA (as though two of the most highly educated places on earth are full of people who simply mindlessly absorb CIA propaganda and themselves don't otherwise have countless other great reasons to loathe the CCP dictatorship), or else a product of racial self-loathing. I don't know HK very well but in Taiwan that's laughable. The people here tend to be justifiably proud of not having eviscerated traditional Han culture and replaced it with the CCP Mao-Xi living god cult.

Being able to whine and try to blow smoke up my ass at the same time is a fancy talent but the smoke ain't getting in. I quoted ONE LINE of his post and commented on that ONE LINE. Regarding that line, Indeed, you do toe the CCP propaganda line here with almost religious zeal, and I can understand why he thinks you might work for them. I quoted him to venture that I think you don't work for them, you just have a syndrome akin to some loser in London who thinks his life might get better if he moved to ISIS. Like I said though, shitty way to live either way. I see your interpretation. Let me clarify: You have been striving to connect all anti-CCP statements made here to anti-Chinese racism for weeks now. My comment was, meant more generally, because you are generally playing games. If Logray is making *actual* racist comments he should stop, Just as you should stop being the local CCP snitch. THE CCP IS NOT COMMUNIST AND DOES NOT EVEN TRY TO BE EXCEPT IN NAME ONLY. If you cannot see this, your reading of Marxism is inexcusably facile. Now: Stop whining and go after the WHOLE post I made above.

Yet again you ignore almost everything that is said to you and yet try to keep the discussion going in your favor. Considering that you have been putting words in my mouth, you can deal with the whole post above instead of just one little corner you've tried to latch onto, and then we will talk about the JPG you just pasted here.

1. How the FUCK am I defending any statement made about cats and dogs? You make these comments and then substantiate them by quoting some guy called "Master Logray." I am not him nor have I anywhere put my stamp of approval on his posts. Your emotional relationship with the CCP is, once again, heavily blurring your vision. I have explicitly in this thread clarified that I am speaking about the Chinese Communist Party, not the PRC citizenry or people of Chinese descent anywhere outside of the PRC's borders. For fuck's sake, try to read at least as well as you write. Trying to put words in my mouth, what the fuck is wrong with you? 2. I have not come out in favor of the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory. I am not even particularly interested in it at this point, although that may change if I see more evidence one way or another. I will say this: I was employed by a biochemistry lab in a top US university in the 1990s, and I have been trained in labs in two CCP medical universities, one of which is a heavily-funded "Key University" in Beijing. Comparing a US lab and a PRC lab, the standards of dealing with biohazard waste were night and day. Put another way, there may as well have not been any standards much of the time in the lab in Beijing, whereas in the US things we ran an extremely tight ship. But here's the key: even in the US lab, accidents did happen. They always happen. There is a fucking sixty-year-old flock of green parakeets that lives in Chicago which might have escaped from U of Chicago labs, and there are similar examples all over the world. So, yes, sure, the virus might have been being studied in Wuhan, and the biohazard maintenance standards there are probably poor, and if so it could have escaped from a lab in some way or another. Is this sooooooo fucking mind-blowing? Is an idea fundamentally racist just because an avowed racist like Donald Trump exploits it in a racist way? These aren't rhetorical questions, Palomides, but since I've noticed you have a shitty habit of ignoring all the questions I ever ask you, let me answer them both, emphatically: No and Fucking no. Here's where you need to take off your strongman-fetish cap and put on your thinking cap for just a moment, Palomides, if you can bear to: 3. Right above I just said that I am not very interested in the Wuhan lab theories. Why? Because focusing on what is now mostly speculation strongly detracts from public discourse about a very real problem about which there is no need to speculate. And it is this problem which is really at the crux of the worldwide plague and its relationship with the CCP. What is this problem? It is very simple, and it is well-known, and I hope it will never be forgotten: When the first doctors in Wuhan began to suspect that they had a SARS-like coronavirus on their hands and began discussing how to protect humanity from a potential pandemic in a small, private, doctors-only WeChat discussion forum, what happened? Anybody who reads the news and doesn't have CCP faff dribbling from the corner of his mouth knows what the fuck happened: those doctors were rounded up, threatened with punishment to be meted out with the force of a totalitarian dictatorship behind it, forced to sign confessions which were read on TV, and then summarily silenced. One of those doctors, as is well-known (and keep in mind that this issue caused tremendous anger amid PRC citizens in China, even though overseas herbs living in relative freedom in the US and Malaysia like Palomides and C T may not care) soon died from the very coronavirus he tried to warn us about. Whose Fucking Fault Is That? Why harp on this issue? Because the way in which those doctors were immediately stripped of their human and civil rights the moment they tried to do the right thing represent the standard operating procedure of CCP governance. I have seen this SOP up-close and personal and met many of its victims. In some very tangible ways (including a huge scar on my body), I am a walking victim of those SOPs. So yes, kids, I'ma fucking hammer on this point. It doesn't matter if the virus came from a bat bite, bat soup, a lab, a pet pangolin, or even a fucking US army cyclist. What matters is that when push came to shove and a few honest, upstanding doctors in China tried to figure out how to save their city and, by extension, they country, and, by extension, the whole fucking world from the travesty that is still unfolding, WHAT HAPPENED?! The CCP you so love humiliated, terrified, threatened, and stopped them from doing anything. Further coverups only ensued, including the ongoing and laughable (if you believe them, especially now that even the PRC government is up-adjusting statistics) lies about how many people have been infected and died in China. So no, Palomides, I am not spewing racism about what Chinese people eat (hell, I've eaten a duck's head, skull brain beak and all, in China). Nor am I spreading speculative theories about laboratories or even wet markets, despite that fact that any asshole who wasn't born yesterday can tell you both are often a huge mess in China as well as elsewhere. No, I am fucking livid about the egregious treatment of those Wuhan doctors and every other abused whistle blower in China (including the disappeared citizen journalists) and the constant stream of CCP propaganda lies, which you and C T so unfortunately are willing to repeat here like gospel. Again your faulty reasoning is drawing connections where there are none. One, I did not make comments here about which animals anybody should eat, nor did I "like" posts that touch on such an issue. Two, I do not think that the melamine scandal that killed and poisoned countless infants has any relationship to gustatory preferences. I brought up the melamine scandal because it reflects a culture of corruption, inhumaneness, greed, and coverups that is endemic in the CCP and those who do their bidding and follow their ways. And, by the way, since we're talking about the milk scandal, let's not forget what happened to one of the good, upstanding Chinese gentlemen in the PRC who stood up to warn his fellow countrymen and women about the chemicals causing their infants to suffer kidney failure: @SirPalomides: I have another question which is not a rhetorical question, but let me preface it with a rhetorical question: Do you have the guts to answer it fair-and-square like an honest man? Because the question is: Do you not see what is similar about the fate of Zhao Lianhai and the fates of the Wuhan doctors, including Li Wenliang??? If you cannot or will not see the similarity and extrapolate from that there is something extraordinarily terrible about the CCP, you are truly an obstinate and stubborn ethno-nationalist fanboy. Exactly. Palomides is continuously trying to paint me into a corner that my words here have never led me into. I remember this terrible habit of his was on display not long ago when he was in a discussion with Taomeow, and she had to read him the riot act. Dude needs to show some fucking respect and quit lazily indulging in logical fallacies and misattribution. Palomides: Stop putting words in my mouth. I don't know if you get so worked up when you see the CCP get attacked that you simply can't see straight, or if you're trying to play games on purpose. Either way, you are disgracing yourself and acting like a 小粉紅 snitch. To anybody who has a problem with my tone of voice: I'm glad you noticed. This is how I would talk to a Nazi apologist, a slavery/Jim Crow apologist, etc. I've even lost a solid 9-to-5 job for going toe-to-toe with a manager who was bullying the Chinese staff in a bank I worked in. I got nooooooo problem being an asshole to bigots and their apologists, no matter what color they are, and my money is mos def where my mouth is, online or off.

The game Palomides is trying to play here is extraordinarily hypocritical. The thrust of his reasoning for posting the above quote is as follows: Because Li Hongzhi and his followers have bizarre-sounding religious beliefs stemming from fantastic-sounding visions their founder claims to have, they can be laughed off as kooks. Therefore, any accusations about CCP brutality made by the Falun Gong or their affiliated organizations should be written off as false. Furthermore, anybody who believes what the Falun Gong says about the CCP should be seen as themselves buying into Falun Gong's religious beliefs about aliens, heavenly realms, and so forth. The hypocrisy in the logic being served to us by Palomides is too rich. He posts the above quotes as though he is a man for whom believing fantastic stories is tantamount to being a fool, And yet he has here publicly declared that he, not long ago, strongly considered becoming a monk in a religion populated by people who believe that some ancient Israeli tradesman who got nailed to a wooden cross was actually the Old Testament God in the flesh. Following his dabbling in the cult of people who belief that the guy on the crucifix is a deity, he developed a strong interest in magical, anthropomorphic, able-to-turn-invisible-or-shape-shift, immortal fox spirits. Let's add this up: Apparently, Li Hongzhi, et al, believing in aliens demonstrates such unforgivable stupidity that anything they say is automatically disqualified... and yet somehow people who instead of aliens believe in heavenly avatars nailed to crosses and talking fox genies are, you know... sane and believable. Right. Can you say, Hypppooocccrrriiiittttttte? As far as I am concerned, Falun Gong certainly has an agenda. They have never in 25 years made any bones about it: they would like to see the CCP be replaced in China. After they started to be brutally oppressed following their peaceful protests in the 1990s, their distaste for the communist party understandably only grew. Now, even if you don't believe that Falun Gong members' organs have been sold to wealthy/connected PRC citizens and foreign medical tourists, it is undeniable that Falun Gong was brutally cracked down on and its members continue to be stripped of basic, universal human and civil rights (rights which Palomides, fox sprite and Jesus enthusiast, clearly himself enjoys as he partakes of freedom of speech and freedom of religion on www.thedaobums.com), including: the right to assembly, freedom of religious choice, freedom of speech, and the right to a fair trial in a balanced court of law without cruel and unusual punishment, indefinite detention, detention without charge, and so forth. Given that the oppression of Falun Gong (not to mention countless other qigong-centric organizations that were popular in the 1990s) is undeniable, why should we expect their members not to have an anti-CCP agenda? Would any of you not have an agenda against a brutal totalitarian regime that imprisons and tortures thousands of your coreligionists? Given that we can safely assume that, yes, Falun Gong and its mouthpieces have an agenda, should we take their statements with a grain (or perhaps many large grains) of salt? I would say, yes, absolutely. Their opposition to the CCP is clearly so strident that they are willing to make use of opportunities for leverage that I, personally, would avoid--specifically, I am speaking about throwing full-throated, millenarian-themed support behind Donald Trump. The opportunistic or deluded (I am not sure which it is) embrace of Donald Trump by the Epoch Times is a move that forces us to add grains of salt to our appraisal of any statements they make about the CCP. But by no means can we take the extreme position Palomides does here, which I summarize as: -Writing off Falun Gong because they have strange religious beliefs (again, they are no stranger than those that are his own or which he tolerates from other groups that he has no political aversion to). -Writing off Falun Gong because they see an opportunity in Donald Trump (again, it is in supreme distaste for any group to lend support to Donald Trump, and yet if we dispassionately ask what kind of strategy Falun Gong may be embracing, it is easy to imagine that they do not actually mean exactly what they say about him). For better or for worse, it is a fact of Planet Earth that successful religious organizations tend to be very capable of accumulating vast monetary wealth. It is also a fact that running a newspaper is an extremely expensive endeavor. Falun Gong's bitter, tragic ravaging at the hands of the CCP in China leave it with a huge axe to grind against the communist party--a bigger axe to grind than almost anybody right now, except perhaps the Uighurs and Tibetans. Given that they are a religion with a lot of money and a score to settle, it is quite understandable that they would found a newspaper in order to air grievances against the CCP as well as push for its replacement. I do not suggest believing every word they publish, but I am not wont to write them off simply because they have a weird cosmology and the ability to stomach Trump. Returning to the question of how much money is required to run a newspaper, if not for a filthy rich religion, who the fuck else has enough cash to pay reporters, editors, and so forth salaries while they dig into the hidden undersides of the CCP that no newspaper anywhere in the PRC is allowed to write about!? Given that very few media organizations with large numbers of native-Chinese-speakers on staff are able to commit themselves to doing reporting that is not CCP-approved, I would go so far as say it behooves us to lend Falun Gong an ear, albeit not a wholly credulous one. After all, otherwise, what else do we have? Most of it is CCP propaganda, which must be wrong--I mean, the only person who buys it hook, line, and sinker here is Palomides. And that dude thinks the man on a cross is God and wants to learn to talk to invisible magic foxes.

Blah blah blah. You have yet to meet a covid conspiracy theory you don't like, So long as it makes all blame fall far from the CCP. There is something wrong with this picture.