Walker

Amen. Kid, quit whining. You're not the first one here to have had strong suicidal ideation. You're not the first one here to have had mysterious, debilitating pain and illness. You're not the first one here to have suffered from serious depression. You're not that unique, original, or amazing. Your just a typical, ho-hum dude going through some vaguely atypical shit on a planet where everybody gets sick and eventually most people get terribly sick. Quit moping for attention and follow through on some of the advice you're asking for. Want to know what volunteering will do for your mind and body? Great. I can tell you how you can find out: Get off your ass and go find some people to help, and stick at that three days a week for the next three months without any breaks or excuses. Then come back and tell us how your situation has changed. On your remaining four days a week, follow the advice other people have given you. Also without breaks or excuses. If you don't want to do anything to improve your lot but remain here and write about yourself, please at the very least ditch the whiny, woe-is-me attitude and stop trying to emotionally blackmail people with suicide threats. Those are really unfortunate habits.

Nothing! That up there was perfect, you really outdid yourself, seriously, what a tour de force, and now you've saved all of our souls, we totally understand and accept and embody your teachings evermore, so thank you, you can finally just retire now and go back to the 36th level of the heavens where I'm sure they're starting to miss you, please and thank you!

Oh lord, don't encourage the guy... 😂

Yep, Therapist is needed. If you do not have the money to visit one or you live in a very remote area or a country without many mental health professionals, I suggest reaching out to a suicide hotline and/or elders/mentors in your area. ALSO, Volunteer. A lot. The more the better. You need to feel needed. You ARE needed. There is SO fucking much on this planet that needs doing, and not enough people doing it, even though there are too many people. Ironic, eh? Greta Thunberg changed the world by sitting on her ass outside of the parliament. You're sitting on your ass not changing anything at all, not even your own circumstances. There are SO many people and SO many organizations you could be helping with your time and energy. AND you will reap the benefits of oxytocin, which you need desperately. Go. Outside. Help. Other. People. Bare minimum, kid: Help me and every one of us fuckers who is fretting on the Global Warming thread in the Rabbit Hole section. We're counting on you. Go. Now.

I am seriously starting to suspect that Everything is just a troll bot. @Everything: PLEASE SWEETLY ENDEAVOR TO AT THE VERY FUCKING LEAST PASS THE TURING TEST! Heavens to Betsy.

Indeed, Buddhists and Daoists have long been helping each other out and cross-pollinating in all sorts of ways. You can find subtitled video on YouTube of this Rinzai monk of most pleasant mien, Shodo Harada Roshi, offering meditation instructions that are undeniably Daoist--all dantian and ren du meridians. They've got a very pleasant temple near Seattle, worth a visit if you're in the area. Anyway, Thank Xiwangmu that Hakuin met his Daoist teacher! Thank Pervasive Fragrance Buddha that Zhang Boduan met Xuedou Hongxian! They all benefited! We all benefit! Oh, just typical crumpets, syrup courtesy of Queen Mother of the West's peaches of immortality, and a batter possibly infused with a secret ingredient known by many names, "Buddha" perhaps being one of them. (Gotta keep the baldies and topknots equally happy, you see...)

Noam Chomsky has never struck me, even, not even once, as a "sky is falling" alarmist. The extreme difficulty of protecting forests: https://theintercept.com/2019/11/25/amazon-bolsonaro-dorothy-stang-brazil/ Climate tipping points: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/27/climate-emergency-world-may-have-crossed-tipping-points

Gimme a pair of the frilly joints

How tall is he? Can you ask him if I can get that jumpsuit from the second photo when he's done with it? And those glasses, shit, those glasses...

I think sometimes people get the sense that syncretic mixing is an especially new thing, but I think it has long (if not always) been the norm. It's well documented at Dunhuang, and also at the site that became Mecca, as Reza Aslan vividly describes in One True Faith. The mixing of Indian spirituality in Daoism wasn't at all limited to trading hubs long ago on the central Asian silk road and the gradual seeping of Buddhist cosmology and ethics into Complete Reality Daoism. This year I was surprised to meet a Zhengyi Daoist practitioner/professor who does fieldwork all around Taiwan and the southeastern PRC who has dug up all sorts of writings from a 瑜伽派 ("yogic lineage") in Daoism. As for the "om" in particular, it was long ago absorbed into Daoism. I have encountered this teaching from two Daoist sources. Both used the character 唵/an, but this character has long been used in Sinicized Sanskrit to represent om. One teacher was very clear that this practice comes from Buddhism. I also learned it on Mt. Tiantai in Zhejiang (southeastern PRC, the same broad area where the "yogic lineage Daoists" are/were active; it is also the mountain that produced Tiantai Buddhism, well known for its absorption of many Daoist practices) from a Longmen monk in a line that claims to still have Zhang Boduan's southern school transmission. Zhang Boduan's affinity for Buddhism was incredibly deep, so much so that after he appeared in the Qing dynasty to save an emperor from illness, he was posthumously given a title that includes the term "Chan Immortal" (禪仙). Later the fourth section of Awakening to Reality (悟真篇) was even thrown into the new version of the Buddhist Canon on orders of Emperor Yongzheng, himself a brilliant cultivator whose enlightenment was confirmed by a Chan master (whose assessment he didn't believe) and a Dzogchen master (who continued his education until declaring him a rinpoche, at which point Yongzheng agreed that he knew his shit and began teaching meditation to a small group of people in his inner circle). Showing how mixed up this all is, I learned about Zhang Boduan's appearance to cure the sick emperor from the inscription on the front wall of the original structure of the Dragon Well Buddhist Monastery in the mountains north of Beijing. There, embedded in the wall next to the front door of this monastery, you can find a small shrine, replete with a statue, to a local doctor saint who was taught the Dao in dreams by Zhang Boduan! In short, it's looooooong been a great big mess! But then again, wouldn't it be boring as hell if it wasn't?

Sometimes we can get lost in semantics, but I think what Taomeow just explained about the word "invoke" is very important. I think (I might be wrong) some Daoists with registers do have the power to invoke certain parts of the pantheon, but certainly not the Three Pure Ones, the Jade Emperor, Guanyin, etc. I wouldn't personally experiment with trying to invoke them. Daoism is full of stories about 天譴, heavenly rebukes. Maybe that's what Desmond experienced when he tried his experiment? I dunno. The second paragraph in Taomeow's post is also very on point and worth of reflecting upon. To the third I would add that 救苦天尊 responds readily to prayers to 救 (save from) 苦 (suffering). Generally speaking, my sense is that the more magnanimous one's motivations for praying, the more numinous the response.

Shit, I had already started boiling water and everything! Guess I'm gonna have to drink this fine 老白茶 all by my ownsome. Unless... any other immortals out there wanna drop by? Nah? I got crumpets around the house, too... Dag. You take care, too.

@Apech I really want to agree with you. I really hear where you're coming from. But this dude is inveterate! All he needs to do is offer a single, "I'm sorry guys, I was younger, it was dumb, I fucked up, wouldn't have done it if I knew then what I know, apologize for freaking you all out." But there's not a peep of this, and actually he just doubles down! I don't think things are simply "in the past" when a person displays the exact opposite of contrition. I'm not champing at the bit for a ban. But do I think declaring rapey, pedophilic writings to be an absolute no-no--and banning on the basis of them--is not quite thought police level (hell, didn't even 4Chan ban that shit?). The man is oh, so eager to play spiritual adviser to anyone who will have him... Aiya...

No idea. I know an Indonesian Chinese guy who says his father once picked up a book in a temple somewhere that said if you shave a child's eyebrows totally off, the child will see ghosts. The guy was four or five at the time, so his dad got out his razor and shaved off his eyebrows. He claims that he did see ghosts, and it was terrifying, and when his mom got home and asked what the f#$& happened to her son's eyebrows and everything was explained... well... she was not amused. I can't remember the end of the story well, but I think the guy might have said they needed to get his new "ability" "shut down" by ritual or something like that. He's a pretty weird guy, prone to thinking too much about this sorta yin stuff. I don't totally believe the story, don't totally disbelieve it either. If I have kids, I probably won't shave their eyebrows off, though. Edit: I also don't think I'll rub dog piss in their eyes, either...

I was exceedingly polite with you the first time, when you started making your mistaken claims here. Suffice it to say, I agree with what SirPalomides just said. I think you're playing twisty games, attempting to paint me into a corner ("academic with no practical experience") to win your games, and now making fundamentalist claims about a millennia-old tradition that has always had diversity and the ability to accommodate different ways of doing things at its heart. Daoism has room for a lot of things, but it actually doesn't have much room for those who say they know the "one true way," because the bar for proving such a claim is extremely high and yet extremely simple and clear. If you have accomplished yourself, then you should be able to manifest your yangshen anywhere in the world. If you can do this, I invite you to visit me to finish this conversation in person; tea, coffee, or beer will be on me. If you cannot, then you are still in the same boat as the rest of us, and you sure ain't cap'n, cap'n.

Inasmuch as what you say here may accurately represent the Buddhist and Daoist teachings you've encountered in your life, it contains some truth. But as you have evidently encountered a smaller sliver of what Buddhism and Daoism have to offer than many others among us have, you present a much smaller serving of fact than some others here can. Ignorance is unavoidable for all of us; 99.9∞% of the universe is unknown everybody on this board. However, even though it is challenging sometimes, if we aspire to be cultivators then we have to be open to the need to gradually diminish our ignorance of certain things. When faced with information that is new to you, do you really do yourself any service by reacting with emotion, vitriol, and a slew of imaginings about a person who know you only by a few lines of text? The very partial instruction you have written about here may well be what you learned from your Daoist teacher. That does not mean your statements about Buddhism are correct, nor that your blanket statements about Daoism are, either. Did you know that, in fact, numerous Daoist teachers view lower dantian focus meditation as something that is not particularly important or useful and do not practice it (examples I have met: some Longmen teachers, the neidan Western School)? Did you know that still others actively counsel against focusing on the lower dantian because of the undesirable side effects that doing so can cause (examples I have met: a 仙學 teacher in Chen Yingning's line and a Daoist taiji teachers)? Do you know that there are Daoist teachers who warn about potentially serious complications if lower dantian focus is done at the wrong stage in training, or in the wrong way? Do you know that there are some teachers who only teach focusing on the lower dantian as a response to specific physiological phenomena that can arise during meditation? In short, this is a deep and complex topic. Finally, while you may not have met any Zen practitioners who "surrender" or "flow down," I suggest avoiding making conclusions you could only really make had you seen the end-all-be-all of Chan/Zen and Buddhism at large. Daoist ancestors like Lu Dongbin, Li Daochun, Liu Yiming, and many others have unequivocally stated that Buddhists can accomplish what Daoists do. The living Daoist master Hua Ching Ni has repeated this teaching in his books. Lest you still harbor the notion that I am copying and pasting things here, allow me to state that I have visited as well as studied and practiced with many Daoist teachers who offer the same opinion when they are teaching in person. Before you vent more spleen in my direction, please be aware that I am taking the time to write all of this for the benefit of curious newcomers who deserve to get as clear and comprehensive a picture of these traditions as we are capable of offering. I'm not particularly interested in converting you to my views or forcing you to abandon yours. Simply, you have made points that strike me as glaringly in need of counterpoints, because they demonstrably counterfactual, and could mislead others. This is why I am taking the time to write. You are welcome to disagree with me, but why can't you do better than calling me stupid and telling me to shut up without even spending a couple of days looking into the ideas I have presented?

I vote in support. And I agree with ilumairen that silence is tantamount to condoning and accepting, especially with a guy who sometimes posts so much that there's hardly a thread he's not holding court in.

1. "Zazen" is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word "zuochan." Its characters are 坐 and 禪, which mean "sit" and "dhyana." The Sanskrit word dhyana is called chan in Chinese and zen in Japanese. When capitalized they refer to the schools of Buddhism that bear this name. Zazen/zuochan, thus, is a Buddhist term which means practicing this form of Buddhist meditation. This term is seldom used by Daoists to describe their practice. More commonly, Daoists talking about seated meditation use the general terms jingzuo/靜坐 (tranquil + sitting) or dazuo/打坐 (hit + sit), which are also sometimes used by Buddhists, yogis, and others who have seated meditation or contemplation practices. Unlike zazen/zuochan, jingzuo and dazuo are not specific to a certain type of meditation practice. 2. It is widely documented that many forms of Buddhist meditation, including but not limited to zazen (see, for instance, the Thai vipassana teachings preferred by Daniel Ingram as well as Tibetan vase breathing), involve gentle concentration on the belly. 3. In addition to Buddhist meditation techniques that involve gentle concentration on the belly, there is an incredibly well documented wealth of other Buddhist practices that do not involve the head. 4. Also very well documented is the fact that many very important Daoist meditation practices are conducted right inside of, you guessed it, the cranium. 5. "The dark valley flowing down." Where does this notion come from? More study. Less emotion. Yawn. Yes, I massage my books. They purr. Trying to punch up from time to time is fine, but be careful not to break your proverbial hands on anybody's shinbones.

If you try and ignore him he occupies almost every single thread on Daoism to copy-and-paste grand speculative screeds about things like light from the future and the supposed (and evidently quite imaginary) aversion to ejaculation of Bushmen people. My observation is that if people disagree with him he actually quite regularly becomes insulting and just does more copying-and-paste flooding, only then with giant, red highlighted fonts. Why does board membership get anybody a pass? Does this mean that as long as somebody registers an account on TDB, they're allowed to do and say whatever they want? Seems a bit arbitrary to me. What happens if @TheRealTronaldDump gets an account here? Maybe some of us here are being mean spirited. But Void is an unrepentant proponent of energetic child molestation with questionable meditation teachings who is constantly trawling for naive followers (and now money). Nothing else has gotten through to him and he is not banned. Kinda leaves people who find his stories gross in a bind, eh?

I don't think there is any official school or lineage called "Action and Karma" in Daoism. But sometimes the character 派, which is often used in the names of Daoist sects, schools, and lineages, only means "style." For instance, artists and musicians who do things in the "Shanghai mode" are called "海派." Sometimes the character gets used in spiritual cultivation not to refer to a formal sect/school, but to a way of doing things. Kind of like saying "old school" in English. Maybe that is what she was trying to say. There are deity name chanting practices and mantra chanting practices in Daoism, but I do not have much instruction in them. It is generally considered inadvisable to go about making up your own practices in Daoism, which always emphasizes teacher student relationships. Even Daoists with no human teachers are always said to have heavenly teachers, or to themselves be heavenly teachers incarnate. By the way, it is widely written that chanting certain scriptures many thousands of times brings about results. The end of the Classic of Clarity and Stillness (《清靜經》, Qingjingjing) has a discussion of how chanting the scripture will bring certain benefits to the reader. This kind of thing can also be seen with some Highest Purity scriptures. To this day I know many people who chant the Daodejing and Qingjingjing with this in mind. Such considerations are a part of the Quanzhen liturgy, as well. Yep. Fa sho.

You continue to repeat the same falsehood. Why not go learn more, instead of using your precious time to make incorrect statements that may well sow confusion in the minds of curious newcomers here?

But pleeeaaasee remember that "enlightenment" is an English word, likely quite different from what is meant by "bodhi." My interpretation is that the duality between light and dark is not of much relevance to awakening beings either in Buddhism or in Daoism. I am not a buddha or an immortal, but the textual and vernacular teachings in both traditions support this claim, as do certain experiences I've had in practice and my teachers' interpretations of them. To be sure, there are plenty of Buddhists (and Daoists) with an "otherworldly" focus that I find troubling on multiple levels. Rather than go on and on about it, I'll just say that I more or less think what Ishmael says in Ishmael is on point. But there are also Chan and Dzogchen teachers who emphasize very clearly that this very world is a Pure Land to those who have awakened. With their awakening, however, nothing is changed, and nothing is purified. As Chan Buddhism's Sixth Ancestor Huineng's four line poem makes so succintly clear, awakening does not rely upon any sort of purification whatsoever. I believe the Tibetan Buddhist Shabkar also spoke directly about the Pure Land being this very world in his poetry, but I don't have the book of his poetry with me. Might have been Longchenpa, or both of them. A modern Chinese Buddhist monk, Miao-yin (妙印法師, I think in this recording if your Chinese study has gotten to this level) also makes this point, in addition offering a detailed explanation of why proper chanting of Amitabha's name converges with other Buddhist practices after a certain stage (that stage being where the chanting and chanter disappear). Returning to the word "pure," my understanding is that there is a "relative" usage of this word at the level of day-to-day logic, i.e., "this cup contains pure water, this cup contains polluted water." It should not be confused with the "non-relative" usage at the level unconstrained by day-to-day logic. Since language is what it is, those who use language to teach have no choice but to borrow words that have relative meanings to try and point towards non-relative meanings. They all admit that this is a clumsy-but-unavoidable way of transmitting teachings, and it can lead to confusion about the teachings as well as clarity. My understanding is that, in Buddhism and Daoism, when one whose vision is "pure" or "clear" looks at the two cups of water I just mentioned, there is nothing that can be said about them. They can't be called the same, they can't be called different, they can't truly be named or called anything. And yet if, for the sake of convenience, they are named and described, despite the utterance of words and the applications of labels, to the "pure one" nothing is diminished, lessened, changed, or "impurified." A way of resolving this conundrum is alluded to in the Chinese phrase "平等心是道," also written "平等心是佛." So, while simplistic Pure Land teachings are offered to people who for all manner of reasons are more motivated to practice by longing for heaven or fear of hell than a wish to develop wisdom in this life, Pure Land teachings include many subtler layers of meaning. At the subtler level, these is no leaving of anything out in the cold. There is not even leaving and coming. Buddhism makes an effort to offer teachings that can be used by adults who are not prone to critical thinking, reasoning, and reflection. The idea is that, since it is unlikely that most of these adults will change their lifelong habits of thinking before they die, then at least it is sensible to give them simple teachings and practices they can get started with, and which will greatly increase the likelihood that in this life of the next they develop the capacity for more nuanced thinking. When one who is prone to nuanced thinking sees only the teachings meant for those who are averse to doing much thinking at all, Buddhist teachings can seem senseless and even repugnant (just like abstruse Chan teachings literally put many people to sleep or even make them angry). This reads to me like a value judgement I would be wary of yoking myself to, lest it end up being like a ball and chain on my ankle. Why not try setting it temporarily aside for awhile and seeing what happens? Are there really issues of natural and unnatural, deep and shallow, light and dark, porous and impenetrable, sacred and profane, surveilled and unseen, power and powerlessness, etc, to buddhas and immortals? If you are saying that the desire to try and know everything is toxic, I agree. If you have encountered many Buddhists who seem to think the goal of their path is to become all-knowing, omniscient superbeings, that wouldn't surprise me. They are many who think this way. I do think they are mistaken about what the Buddha taught, though, and I have yet to meet or hear about a person with such an underlying set of motivations whose story does not end up riven with tragedy. In fact, I think we see plenty of people on this website who go off the rails due to precisely such an orientation. It seems that great energy may be drawn from such motivation for a time, but if it does not give way to quiet wisdom, then major obstacles arise, and collision soon enough follows. In the end, all Shakyamuni did was sit down, shut up, and wait and see. Yes, a gentle mixing of affinity, dedication to practice, and study of theory. Thank you for your comments, too.

The picture painted in very broad strokes in this paragraph is not wholly inaccurate, but it is just one part of one angle of the picture. The relationship between Buddhism and Daoism in the various kingdoms and states we now historically lump together as "China" was never simply one of competition. All sorts of blending took place, and continues to take place, between practitioners who appreciate the teachings of a variety of traditions and enjoy the company of people from a variety of walks of spiritual life. A combination of competition, cooperation, cooexistence, conflict, convergence and so forth gave us the stew of praxes and ideas we have today. Yes, it would depend on who you ask and when, but not solely on the basis of manipulativeness. There are many non-manipulative/anti-manipulative practitioners in institutionalized Buddhism and Daoism. Perhaps they are a minority, even a small one. But they are not that hard to find, if only because their scarcity lets them stand out, even if they tend to be low key individuals. Today in the Chinese religious world, if a wise teacher has a certain level of achievement, he or she may make recommendations to students who come seeking teachings on the basis of direct sensing of their latent affinities. Off of the top of my head I can think of three older Daoists who fit this bill. The first sentence is correct. The second sentence is not. I have read many of your posts on the influence sun worship over the years as well as many of your posts where you espouse on Buddhism. Your ideas about the former are interesting, but I don't think they describe "the whole picture" any more than the above paragraph about the relationship between Buddhism and Daoism does. Regarding the latter, many comments you have made on Buddhism lead me to believe that your study of this subject is still way too nascent for you to make some of the comments you do. It is hard to believe that a person who had been exposed to Buddhist primary sources (written and oral) would conflate chanting Amitabha's name with sun worship. Just because the sun puts out a lot of light and Amitabha means "infinite light" does not mean that Amitabha = the sun. In fact, I would say that that "light" in question here is metaphorical for awareness/awakeness/consciousness, not an actual light source of any sort. The sun, despite being the brightest thing any of us have ever known, actually only serves modest symbolic value for the (metaphorical) "light" of awakening, because the sun is a discrete object whose light pours from a single point in space in time, and that there are always places that are in shadow. Conversely, enlightening mind is a non-object whose "light" is everywhere, including the darkest shadows. Speaking as a longtime student of Buddhism, the third sentence in the quoted section above is plainly mistaken. The Buddhist teaching is that you could substitute the name of any other buddha or great bodhisattva ("great" here denotes a bodhisattva at the level of buddhahood, such as Guanyin, Manjushri, or Ksitigharba--who happens to have achieved great bodhisattvahood starting as a little girl trying to help her mom) for Amitabha's name. This teaching is extremely clear: the merit generated by and the effectiveness of chanting any one buddha's name is exactly the same as the merit generated by and effectiveness of chanting any or all other buddha's names. Students are therefore often advised to simply chant the name(s) they feel a natural affinity or inclination towards. Amitabha and the Medicine Buddha (often depicted with dark, lapis lazuli-colored skin; very un-sun-like) are common choices, but this is said to be that is only because those two buddhas long ago developed strong karmic connections with a large number beings in our era and realm. It is understood that not all beings have strong karmic affinity with the same buddhas. They can happily chant the names of buddhas that have nothing to do with the sun or light. Given that chanting any Buddha's name is considered equally effective, a quick look at a list of the English translations of buddhas' names should demonstrate that chanting "Amitabha" is not some sort of sun worship. In this list we see buddha names such as "Jewel Moon," "Jewel Moonlight," "Water God," and "Deity of Water Gods." In this list there are other names like "Sun and Moon Light Buddha," "Marvelous Sound Buddha," "Lighting the Lamp Buddha," and "Golden Ocean Light Buddha." Here we see "Sweet Dew Remaining Buddha," "Pervasive Fragrance Buddha," "Moon Lamp Buddha," "Lightning Lamp Light Buddha," and "Buddha of Infinite Sound," and "Moon's Sound Buddha." From this list we can ascertain: -Light in Buddhism is not always associated with the sun, and may even come from sources we who have an affinity for Chinese classification would call "yin," such as the ocean and the moon. -In addition to "infinite light" being used as a metaphor for the state of buddhahood, limitless fragrance and sound are used, too. -Some buddhas' names make no reference to light or anything "yang" at all, such as "Deity of Water Gods" and "Sweet Dew Remaining Buddha." Thus, while it is fair and useful to point out that sexist, patriarchal social mores that were a part of the social/cultural milieus that birthed the many iterations of Buddhism we see in the world today, the idea that chanting Amitabha's name is sun worship is quite untenable. Please be cautious when speculating about what kind of substitutions one could make for Buddhist practices and when sharing ideas about their philosophical underpinnings. Well, it really doesn't matter all that much what a non-Buddhist has to say about this practice, at the end of the day. The Buddhist teaching is very simple and straightforward: it is the intent that matters, not the sound of the syllables. This is why the mantras and buddha names are always freely translated and/or transliterated into new languages wherever Buddhism goes. The question of whether or not that is okay is a perennial one, and the final answer tends to be, "those masters whose spiritual capabilities are highly cultivated are able to directly verify that mantras or buddha names chanted in different languages or with bastardized pronunciation of proper Sanskrit are totally effective."

This is actually not an uncommon occurrence. Chanting Amitabha's name is widely understood as a slow but reliable and safe way to clear karmic obscurations, create good karma, train the mind, and greatly increase one's chances of finding an appropriate teacher/path in this lifetime (i.e., its value is not solely limited to praying for rebirth in Amitabha's Pure Land, and it is widely held that some practitioners who simply use this practice can reach enlightenment in this lifetime). Part of the reason that Daoists offer this teaching is that ecumenical attitudes have been quite common for centuries. Another reason is that Daoism doesn't really have (to my knowledge) an equivalent "one size potentially fits all" practice like this one. Still another reason is that Zhengyi Daoism is extremely complicated. If you've ever had the opportunity to observe an all-day Zhengyi ritual it's just insane. Non-stop chanting, singing, playing instruments, dancing, martial arts, coordinated steps holding torches... all this stuff memorized (!)... barely any breaks, Daoists pouring in sweat under their robes. There's little from that repertoire that could be offered to a person who is just visiting a holy mountain, whereas the practice of chanting Amitabha's name can be mastered in under a minute, and bear gifts for the rest of a person's life. It is indeed an admirable contribution and indeed one of the reasons that Buddhism has touched so many lives. While some with Daoist affinity has a dis-affinity for Buddhism, it's hard to deny that many, many people who chant Buddhas' names or mantras report phenomenal effects. Yes, the Daoist "easy path" has been referred to as 上品 or 上乘 since at least the Song dynasty, when some of the ways of sorting, categorizing, and "ranking" various parts of Daoist praxis that are still used today came into vogue. These practices really just center on "doing nothing" (but they might involve some postural or light mental focus instructions) and are spoken of in some detail by the Book of Balance and Harmony (中和集... I remember its translation being somewhat confusing, but it might be better than nothing) and maybe some other texts that are in English. Such practices really are, from a certain standpoint, the easiest thing imaginable, and their proponents tend to argue that they also slowly but surely lead to the very highest attainments. The big caveat is that "doing nothing" is an instruction of unparalleled subtleness, vagueness, insubstantiality, elusiveness, ass-backwardness, boringness, "am I doing not doing right-ness." Thus, Daoists tend to be acutely aware that It is, paradoxically, extraordinarily difficult for the vast majority of practitioners to do the easiest thing. That is why discussion of 上品 /上乘 more often than not make the point that exceedingly few people are ready, as beginners or potentially even after years of seeking, to understand such teachings. This does not mean they must be kept secret from beginners. Quite the opposite, their gist can be discussed quite openly, beginners really can't make heads or tails of this gist. There is no real secret. "Do nothing." There you have it, the whole cat (well, minus a few details, perhaps), out of the bag. If you say to Daoist master (and I am speaking of people I know, not hypothetically) that that makes no sense, he or she very well might laugh, say, "I know," and then suggest you go and recite Amitabha's name for a few years to cultivate wisdom, remove obstacles, and so forth.