Walker

Eh? I know several people who have studied personally with Nan Huaijin (Nan Huaichin/南怀瑾) and many more who have studied at his teaching institute here in China, including one elderly gentleman who is a longtime disciple of Master Nan's and a very close friend/teacher/mentor of mine. To wit, Nan Huaijin smokes cigarettes, has had two wives, eats meat, drinks some alcohol, and even (and this is really gonna fry your noodle, so please fasten your seatbelt if you bedroom--I mean cave--has one) from time to time has been known to say to his students, "all right, now, everybody crack a dirty joke, the dirtier the better, nobody gets outta here without cracking a dirty joke," just to make sure that people don't all overly serious and curmudgeonly and negatocious on the path. Of course, I do not know him personally and it is true that he is said to have spent long periods of his life practicing very bitterly. BUT, the point stands things are likely not so simple as you think. Guys like you and Body of Light should buck up and learn Chinese and then come live in China for awhile before you go on these sorts of spiels. Heck, you might even be right about cutting off the senses and everything, but who is gonna listen when you're just spouting fantastic babble about the lives of spiritual practitioners you have obviously never met? Nobody.

Without reading the Chinese I can't be 100% sure, but allow me to try and clear something up lest there be confusion in this thread. The character for the first "Ch'an" you mention, which is the name of a school of Chinese Buddhism as well as Japanese "Zen" is 禅, and is, if memory serves, a rough transliteration of the Sanskrit word dhyana. The character refered to in the quoted passage is almost surely 忏, which when combined with the character 悔 (hui) becomes the word 忏悔, which in Chinese Buddhist and Daoist circles refers to a practice somewhat akin to "confession." As you can see in the quoted passage, the practice being described is indeed like confession, and is not dhyana. Another clarification: the "Hui" from the title "The Sutra of Hui Neng" is not the above hui and is rather 慧. Again, very different meaning. 慧能 (Hui Neng) is the name of the sixth patriach; 慧 by itself could be translated as wisdom, though I'm sure more nuanced translations are also possible.

I'm sorry to tell you that the type of problem you describe sounds like one that could require quite a long period of treatment, replete with regular visits to the doctor for adjustments to your prescription, etc. Finding a herbal doc who can fix this in one visit would be a huge stroke of luck. Beware of any doc you are taken to by a tour guide. Not that all such doctors are necessarily bad, but there are a looooooot of half-baked doctors and full-blown charlatans here, and they all want your $$$. Nevertheless, with all that in mind, may as well see if you can find a good doc while you're here! You'll encounter plenty of English speakering locals as a tourist; ask one who seems trustworthy if he/she can send you in the direction of a good doctor. There are some great healers in China hiding in broad daylight, you never know who knows one.

Fascinating! Thanks again!

Another question later popped into my head, which I'd like to ask... If my understanding is correct, according to many who practice Daoist spiritual cultivation, essential to the pursuit of lofty spiritual goals is the understanding, accumulation, preservation, and transmutation of energy--lots of it (virtue is of course also of paramount importance, and that the sacrifice made by true healers displays real virtue is unquestionable). If this is accurate, then does the three hours of daily stillness-movement cultivation, in addition to safeguarding the healer's health, also leave the healer with enough qi to pursue internal alchemy? Next time I'm Stateside will certainly take a look at your teaching schedule!

Amen! Thank you for the response. Let us know if you ever offer a class in China, hah!

These are fascinating and inspiring stories--thank all of you who have shared them with us. Reading this post, and many others I have looked at regarding this practice, leaves me with a couple of questions. Over the last few years in China I have met a number of qigong practitioners, including those who use qigong to heal, and a few of them have issued warnings of a type I have not really seen discussed in the West. For example, one healer I know quite well in Beijing told me that she herself has had to heal a number of other healers because they started healing before their qi was strong enough for them to take the risk, and they then ended up full of patients' sick qi which they were then unable to personally send out. The result for them was illness, including in the form of visible "mysterious growths." I have also heard from a doctor at the Shanghai University of TCM's Qigong Research Institute and a teacher of Wudang internal martial arts and qigong that in the late 1980s, after qigong had been extremely popular in China for some time, there was a sudden die-off of qigong healers who hit their 60s and fell apart after having exausted and depleted their yuan qi through careers of healing. Others also very quickly developed severe dementia, I am told. For this reason, the Shanghai university institute doctors only teach qigong, but do not use it to heal except in very rare circumtances. Ditto for the Wudang martial artist. There is still plenty of qigong healing going on in China if one knows where to look for it, but I must say I have indeed not heard of old 90-year-old qigong healers, whereas it is not all that uncommon for docs of that age to still be prescribing herbs or performing acupuncture. I don't know, however, if this loose observation lends any real credence to what I've been told. Misunderstandings about qigong, meditation, Daoism, TCM, etc abound even in the land that gave birth to these traditions, and even in circles of people who seem like they ought to know what they're talking about, but perhaps haven't a clue. I'm curious, are the risks that I have heard described here in China considered a legitemate concern to practitioners of this system? If so, how do healers protect themselves?

If you are this serious then I suggest you take the time to learn Chinese. If you are intelligent, single-minded, and dilligent, and your yuanfen suits the task, then you may be able to reach a level where you can begin studying these texts in classical Chinese in about two years. In less than three years you will be able to start getting through them without always having a dictionary on your lap. Not to mention, by that point texts in modern Chinese will by then be easy reads, and your language ability will open up many doorways to communication with fellow cultivators and teachers. You will also be freed from wondering what was lost or added by translators. One day you may be prepared to yourself offer the service you mention above. I have read some of Liu Yiming's work in the original language and it is infinitely rewarding. A joy. Learning Chinese requires eating a lot of bitter... But as they say, 先苦后甜!

Haha, reminds me of a few years ago when a Nyingma Rinpoche and Dzogchen teacher in the US kindly sat down and gave me a very consice explanation of the goals of his tradition. When I related the conversation to my Daoist teacher, he said, "that's exactly what Daoists cultivate, except using different vocabulary." I should really be studying, but a quick story. Here in China I meet many monks and nuns as well as lay teachers and practitioners. It is a question I often put to them... Are the three schools really one, or not? And specifically, can a practitioner of Daoism transcend the cycle of reincarnation? I've gotten a lot of different answers, but usually, frankly, the Buddhists will say, "no," the Daoists will say, "yes," and the laypeople will offer a variety of answers, usually quite ecumenical and sometimes rooted in serious study and attainment obtained outside of monastic life. I've considered stopping asking the question because I have seen it bring a bit of vitriol into the timbres of even famous, respected Buddhists and Daoists, but it is of too much interest to me... Ah, curiosity! So anyway a few weeks back I had a strange bout of night sweats and went off in search of herbs. I ended up at a small store, not really a pharmacy but loaded with herbs nonetheless, across from the butchers and veggie sellers in an indoor market near my house. Sitting in there was a Buddhist nun whom I greeted with an "Amituofo," though I think at first she may have thought I was mocking her. I bought my herbs and then got into a conversation with the shopkeeper, who it turned out is a lay Buddhist. Suddenly it popped into my head to ask their advice on healthy vegetarian eating and soon enough I was offered a seat. After introducations were made the nun (she is a Han Chinese Gelugpa whose home temple is in a Tibetan area of Sichuan) and I got to chatting and I posed my old question to her. She said that Daoists and Buddhists generally cultivate the same thing, but the problem is that Daoists often cultivate to the level of lower heavens and then, due to attachments, do not continue on the path to liberation, and eventually fall back to the human realm or lower when their karma to enjoy life in the heavens is exhausted. I asked, "but if a Daoist has cultivated with the goal of true understanding and liberation, even if he or she was not a Buddhist in terms of affiliation and identity in this life, wouldn't that will itself be enough to help them have the karma to meet further teachers and continue cultivating in the heavenly realms? Furthermore, surely there are no Daoists in modern China who have not encountered Buddhism, so one could say there are no Daoists who completely lack karmic affinity for Buddhism. Shouldn't these things be enough to ensure that these Daoists who have reached the heavenly realms receive further guidance, provided they have the will to cultivate true understanding of reality?" The nun responded that a Daoist with a will to keep cultivating all of the way to liberation would surely receive guidance, and that it is indeed true that pretty much all Daoists must also have quite a bit of yuanfen with Buddhism--the only obstacles then to further realization to a practitioner who has landed in the heavenly realms, then, would be attachment to one's attainments, or even outright aversion to further learning. We chatted some more and the nun explained that what she believes sets Buddhism apart from other religions is that it specifically is centered around one goal: liberation from unconsciously cycling through the six realms for all eternity, ignorantly buffeted along by one's karma. I asked if one could not then say that another way to refer to Buddhism is as "the path of liberation." She said this is correct. I then asked if one could conclude that Daoism, essentially, is not a path that can lead one to liberation from the cycle of reincarnation. She said, yes, well, that is unless a Daoist cultivates to the level of the 33rd heaven or higher, where reincarnation ceases. My eyebrow went up... This exactly reflects what I have heard from my Daoist teacher. Anyway, Vaj and Stig getting along so well? Auspicious, auspicious, most auspicious indeed!

Always an interesting topic, and indeed one that could be important to cultivators. A few thoughts... -In standing meditation (simple zhan zhuang) in 2007 I was surrounded by mosquitos and bitten everywhere, including the face. What was unusual, however, was that suddenly every mosquito bite seemed to become incredibly hot, and felt as though they were being mildly electrocuted. After a few minutes the bumps were all gone. For the next two years every time I got a mosquito bite, meditating or not, I would get this burning/electric feeling for several minutes, and then the bump would disappear. Now I get more of a generalized pain, and it feels like I can feel the poison in my blood vessels around the bump, but again the bump is gone inside of minutes. Previously for all of my life mosquito bites would last for days, but ever since that day in 2007 the reaction is always the same. On the bright side, the bites are gone very quickly. One the down side, if I am bitten at night it is generally impossible to sleep through the burning pain! Luckily it's gone after five minutes... I am curious it others who practice have found similar changes. -I have also noticed that meditation has a repellent effect, as with Seth Ananda. Standing and sitting both work. Last summer I was not bitten once in my almost-nightly meditation sessions. However, as soon as I closed practice and got into bed, they were ready to eat! Also, I have received very few bites standing zhan zhuang in mosquito-dense areas this spring. Often I have even passed 45-minute sessions without getting a single bite even though they are buzzing around. -A friend of mine who trained Yi Quan for some years in Paris once came to Beijing to see practice with his French teacher's master. This master demonstrated that he could close his pores and tighten his skin at will, making him inedible to mosquitos. In the demonstration a mosquito was already sucking his blood; he closed his skin and the mosquito could not withdraw its nose despite its struggle. Finally the teacher relaxed and the mosquito flew away. I met a cultivator from Dragon-Tiger Mountain in China (he is not a Daoist but practiced Daoist arts) who has what is probably a similar ability. He showed me that he can close his pores at will, which causes goose bumps to form and all of his hairs to stand up on end. He said this also has an insect bite deterring effect. I do not know if these abilities could fall into the category of wei/protective qi. -The famous Buddhist master Jingkong Fashi (静空法师) states in one of his videos that he is seldom bothered by mosquitos because he prays to them, "hello little mosquito boddhisattvas, nice to see you, I know you are hungry but please do not bite me," etc. He says that the mosquitos are so thrilled to be addressed as bodhisattvas instead of devils that they're more than happy to leave people alone. Well, worth a try, eh! I've been employing this technique instead of slapping the little guys this year and seem to be getting results... seriously. But then again, I practice a lot. Maybe it is simply that my wei qi is stronger? Or they're on a diet? -When I ran the phenomenon of not being bitten during meditation last summer by a Buddhist nun she attributed this to the help of protective deities (护法). A practitioner of Daoism, conversely, suggested that relaxation may cause a reduction in the body's release of chemicals that attract mosquitos. -A young taiji teacher from Anhui whom I met on Wudang told me last year that being able to repel insects as Exorcist describes is a prerequisite to embarking on meditative retreat in the mountains. I don't know if all on retreat really reach this level first, but it would certainly help one adjust.

Interesting post. I am a young man in his mid-late twenties, which means I am amongst the last in the developed world who glimpsed life before the internet. Nevertheless, I came of age at the same time as wired and wireless communication technology did. In the past I occasionally used the internet to research and search for teachers (as well as lovers, something which is germane to this topic given what I'm about to say) and only once met with any success--and that was when I tracked down a fellow student of one of my main teacher's masters, meaning that in a sense we already shared a substantial real-world connection. On other occassions, at best I did not gel with the people I met online, and at worst I encountered major, major trouble. Conversely, from my late teens onwards I have been blessed to have met some men and women of great cultivation in the US, New Zealand, and China simply on the basis of personal introduction, coincidence, and tracking people down with literal pavement pounding. It is truly astounding how many individuals of various levels of real cultivation I have met this way. Through the influence I have received from these people I have been blessed to grow from being a young fool to a person with a bit of root and direction in a relatively short period of time. The people on the internet... Well, I learned from them to stop using the internet so much. I do not know enough about the brain to draw left-right hemisphere thought pattern dichotomies, but I do feel that the way we engage with the internet when we search for something is very, very different than how we engage with the real world whether looking for something or not. The internet may seem interactive, but it is not. Because it cannot talk back, it is all too easy to project onto it. Because those who are advertising themselves only reveal what they want to in their words, a form of communication that can hide much to those who are not quite sensitive to energy, it is very easy to be fooled. Because the internet provides information almost solely of a type designed by and for the intellectual mind, we end up deciding on who we will contact online on the basis of how the various attributes people publish about themselves match up with what we believe we need. This is not at all how we meet people in the real world, even when we try to. After some years living in the wired world, I have come to believe that yuanfen either does not work online, no matter whether one be in search of lovers or teachers, or at best does so only with relative rarity and great handicap. On the other hand, for those who have a spirit of sincerity and, yes, sacrifice, yuanfen is as alive and well as ever. Funny enough, I am a young person who is without great financial resources, but my life is saturated not simply with people of cultivation that I can learn from, but seldom have I been asked a penny, and I have even been given material support in addition to healing and the gift of wisdom by no small number of people. When one does not go out looking for handouts and gives freely whe one can, the world responds. Then again, at my age, living overseas in a house with no internet and no TV and a phone with half its buttons missing, I am a bit of an outlier. I am not sure how many people younger than me will come to realize that in addition to being a great tool (after all, it's very easy to find jobs overseas and buy plane tickets now, which is nice), the digital world just ain't no match for analog. 5ET, it is worth saying that one simply avoids the kind of student you describe by not advertising. You plug into the internet, and you naturally plug into its denizens. My primary teacher is a man I have known ten years whom I respect deeply--I lack the ability to assess people's qi or spiritual achievement, but I can say with confidence that his de is of rare, rare, rare caliber in today's world. He also generously and without reservation except for when students aren't ready teaches methods that many people on this forum think they want to learn. This man cannot be found in the phone book, on Google, on Facebook, or even in any photos if he has anything to say about it. I know of others who choose to meet with--or not meet with--students solely on the basis of yuanfen, and be sure they don't get the kind of phone calls you describe! Sloppy Zhang... People were expected to work "all the time" long before smart phones and the next shiny thing. My mom was a waitress who was expected to sit at home next to the phone, just in case. There is a great Chinese medicine doctor in history, one of the true legends, had to teach himself the classics while his fellow workers ate lunch by the riverside and chided him for his dedication. I found time to frequently take the subway three hours round trip to see my teacher whilst finishing my last quarter of college as a full time student and a near full time waiter. This was not long ago. I did not sleep much, but I did it. Anyway, logging off. There's fresher air out there to be breathed than that which has run through the humming guts of this CPU. And I live in one of the most polluted countries in the world and it's still the damn truth.

Also, I have met many students of Zen in China, monastic and lay alike, who are not strangers to 自发功/spontaneous-arising qigong.

阿弥陀佛. Thanks for the post.

Non, my life experiences lead me to agree wholeheartedly to agree with those who have told you: you NEED to speak with a professional. I suggest you be brave and seek one who is both wise and verbally sharp, so that you cannot talk circles around this person. A therapist or mentor you can trounce in debate cannot give you the help you need. You will quite likely need to shop around. In this process, be prepared to hear some things you may not wish to hear. If it is possible, it may be very wise to involve your parents in this process. Secondly, my life experiences also lead me to be able to wholeheartedly tell you: you have much to learn. What you argue is, in the most generous terms I can afford you, a black and white description of a very limited slice of the human experience. As you seem resistant to letting go of your conclusions, I will not waste words typing my story, other than to say that I am certain you are wrong, and that my certainty comes from my own experience. Here and elsewhere many others have shared quite a bit from their own experiences to tell you the same thing I am telling you. Now, you can argue and reason until you are blue in the face and everybody has long given up disagreeing with you, but nothing beats experience. And we on the other side can rebut all we want, but nothing external will sway a stubborn mind. So out of a perhaps naive assumption that part of your motivation for these posts is a wish to alleviate your suffering, let me ask you something: are you willing to change? Good luck.

Sorry to add confusion to the post by being the second "Walker" in here... Might need to change my name some day or other. Anyway... Having been in China for some time now I have to say that, "as much as you want," has never been an answer to this question that I have come across from those involved in Daoist or Buddhist cultivation, nor TCM. As I also grew up in the West I am well aware that many people will think that there is a guilt issue implied by your question, but my observation in China is that this topic is a normal part of discussions about health and does not carry the baggage (or at least the same baggage) that it does in the West. For men in their twenties, I have heard figures ranging from once a week to Starjumpers once a day. As he pointed out, the state of your health (plus diet, mental and emotional habits, sleep habits, stress levels, exercise routine, energy practices etc.) mean this figure is different for everybody. I have heard doctors recommend tapering things off as one ages, while others say one can keep going at once a week until sixty. In terms of wet dreams, these seem to generally be viewed in TCM as a sign of ill health in all but adolescent males if they happen more than once a month and if they are accompanied by sexual dreams. Yes, the accompanyment of a nocturnal emission with a sexual dream is indeed considered pathological in my standard, latest-edition Chinese government-issue TCM textbook, and I have heard the same thing strongly emphasized by a qigong doctor I knew when I was living in Beijing. For her part, she believed a healthy man in his twenties should lose a small amount of his semen in sleep once every two months or so, dreamlessly. She does not represent the Chinese Ministry of Education line and learned her qigong from a Buddhist master in Northeast China. Other docs and cultivators I know have more or less echoed her thoughts, but the thing about TCM and cultivation is that nothing is written in stone, disagreement abounds, and everything is flexible (因人而异）. Some people once a month? Okay. Some people once every three months? Okay. Some people dream about sex and then ejaculate? I'm sure you'll be able to find talented doctors who say that's perfectly normal. TCM is simply this way. However, I don't think that you'll find a TCM doc who will tell you that two wet dreams a week is healthy. I offer one caveat though, which is that I have heard that if you are a practicing cultivator who lacks the ability to circulate jing, then some methods can cause your sexual energy to increase and thus your wet dreams to become more frequent, even as your health is generally improving due to practice. This means that a cultivator passing through a stage of frequent wet dreams is not in the same boat as a sickly fellow whose qi lacks the strength to hold the bodily fluids within. To determine what is the cause of your condition, you will likely need to find a talented, experienced, old-school TCM doc. He or she will look at the entire state of your body and mind in addition to your symptoms in order to obtain a diagnosis and, if necessary initiate a treatment regimen (辨证论治). Offering this kind of diagnosis cannot be done over the internet except for by the most truly exceptional of healers, and I add that I have never heard it said in China that young people should not use herbal medicine. Your age and your body are two different things. If you are sick then you do what you need to do to heal. Let a doctor with experience helping people decide what is the best route for you. Since this is a forum whose name refers to Daoism, it is worth stating that it is a mainstream perspective here that practicing real moderation both in terms of your desire and your ejaculation is a normal part of the advice given to those who wish to be conscious about their health. For example, in a book recently-printed book entitled Wudang Internal Alchemy Daoism and the Study of Health Maintenance, the author quotes China's legendary Daoist doctor Sun Simiao's take. He gives a short list of advice for those who aspire to live in to their hundreds, and practicing sexual moderation is right up there. If you are interested and I have the time I could translate this brief passage. It presents a perspective that is not at all unusual. The author himself is a teacher of meditation, martial arts, and health maintenance (养生) methods he learned on Wudang to heal his own body of illness. He still teaches and maintains close contact with monk-doctors. When I met him he struck me as both a healthy and a learned individual. So it is not just Sun Simiao talking this way hundreds of years ago, but the modern-day inheritors of this tradition as well. The doctors and teachers I know out here, in Daoism, Buddhism, and TCM, would probably all balk at, "as much as you want, dude," "twice a day," etc (but they'd tell you not to be neurotic, either!). Does that mean that the other people who posted here are wrong? I don't know. But I think it's fair to give you this perspective. My observations on the topic. I devoted a huge amount of energy to learning Chinese in a short period of time, and am now studying TCM at an even higher level of rigor. This means I have lived a relatively regimented life over the last three years with a simple pattern of behavior. Doing more or less the same thing most days while also keeping up regular sitting and moving practice has given me the chance to observe how ejaculation affects my mind and body. I have noticed that following ejaculation for as long as three days it is indeed harder to focus my mind, and that I am slightly more prone to moodiness and lethargy. As to reducing ejaculation, other than keeping "once a week" loosely in mind, especially when single, I never concerned myself too much with it. Cultivation slowly diminished my desire to have sex without being in love, and also when my sitting meditation made a level of progress about eight months ago my desire to masturbate evaporated. So, while this is a worthwhile issue to ask about, it seems not to be necessary to try and constrain yourself with great strictness. Focusing on other aspects of cultivation with sincerity, doing your best, observing your body and mind, and having a light heart are probably enough. Changes will take place in their due time. It was put to me when I first started learning Daoist qigong and meditation that when the body gets a taste of health, it likes the taste, and naturally moves you in that direction. I have found this to be true, meaning that I have shed great numbers of very unhealthy habits in recent years and rarely with the outright intent to do so. I believe that in Western medicine it is currently held by many doctors that if you ejaculate both in masturbation and sex, then the cause is more likely physiological than psychological. Only prematurely ejaculating with a partner is then attributed to pure psychological causes. Western docs would likely give you an SSRI to treat this problem, but be careful of that route. There is now a syndrome called something like "post-SSRI sexual dysfunction syndrome" or the like, which can be found on Wikipedia and elsewhere. The drugs may make your problem worse, or create new trouble. Last thing: I have heard it from multiple sources that lovemaking (when there is true love) and regular old sex have very different effects on the qi. The former can be tonifying. The latter is always treated as depleting. Good luck with your health, and especially with finding a good TCM doc. There are a lot of poorly trained ones out there now. Don't be afraid to ask around and shop around. Checking for recommendations from local taiji teachers, Chinese herbal pharmacies, Chinese community centers (especially if they've got old folks, the elderly Chinese pay great attention to their health!) and so forth can help you find out who's got a good rep.

I'm sorry, I can't see YouTube in China. I also do not know what comments you're refering to, but according to my recollection as well as the record of my posts, I have never defended Mak Tin Si. I do not know the man, and have no opinion about him one way or the other.

真的吗? The nice thing about having only 50-something posts is that it is easy to confirm that you, sir, seem to have a rather creative memory.

What you mention is certainly a factor in the minds of many Chinese doctors (especially those of more traditional mindsets), who I have heard say that the best herbal medicines grow in natural surroundings on old plants in their native ecosystems, far from human habitation and pollution, and so forth. They are also often best taken shortly after being picked and are more effective if you eat them near their source rather than after they have traveled around the globe. Conversely, modern herbal medicines grown in monocultural farms far from the source of seeds and close to human settlements, later to be picked and processed with the aid of machines, before being packed into plastic wrapping and turned into globe-trotting freight exposed to all sorts of changes in temperature, altitude, and qi fields over long periods of time... Put simply, such herbs lack a lot of the qi needed to heal disease. Or so I hear. Another important consideration: how was gingko biloba used in China historically? As a supplement taken as those in the study took it? Or as part of a classical herbal prescription, to be adjusted regularaly by a doctor as well as augmented by numerous other herbs in the prescription as well as perhaps acupuncture, lifestyle and diet advice, etc. If the latter is the case, then add to the question the fact that the qi of the doctor must be taken into account and you are faced with an impossible-to-design experiment. No experiment can realistically address them. Knowing what to make of these studies also becomes a difficult task! Probably why many Chinese trust koubei--a good word-of-mouth reputation--more than anything else when looking for doctors and meds.

Would it not be more correct to say that he is a 19th generation holder of the Dragon Gate lineage? It is my understanding that in terms of the Wudang Longmen, at least, there are are a number of lineage holders in the 19th generation. Also, on this I am not clear, but my hunch from living in China is that the Chinese Daoist Association is in charge of official Daoist matters related to temple affairs. Since Master Wang is not a left-home (monastic) practitioner and not a major religious leader, his activities would not need endorsement from this organization unless he were teaching in temples or distributing literature there. Furthermore, I suspect that non-members can teach at or participate in events in temples, as well as distribute literature there, provided they have approval of the Chinese Daoist Association. Further again, there are certainly teachers and literature circulating legally in China that can be called Daoist to varying degrees, but which lack the endorsement of the official governing body. The Chinese Daoist Association is headquartered in the White Cloud Monastery in Beijing and you can be certain that the government's voice is heard in Chinese temples--just try staying in many (but not all) Buddhist and Daoist temples if you lack Chinese citizenship, for example. That a non-monastic teacher would have neither the need nor the desire to embroil himself in government red tape is more than imaginable. It is incredibly inconvenient in all realms of life. Additionally, the Daoist Association's scope may simply not include teachers like Wang, or, if it does, the organization lacks the time and resources to be bothered keeping tabs on him, provided he does not run afoul of the government. If he starts preaching the downfall of the Communist Party, however, be sure that His Dragon-ness will be flying West and applying for asylum with the quickness (miraculous qigong healing powers make nabbing that foreign passport pretty easy, though!).

To me it is hard to forget that during his period of activity two then-regular posters, Lin Aiwei and Daozhen, both of whom tended to receive a lot of respect on this board, both spoke in defense of Mak Tin Si.

Well, if you already have a BA in any field then you can go straight into a TCM masters or PhD degree here if your Chinese is good enough. The age requirements push back into the 40s for PhDs, I believe, and people of all or most nationalities can apply. Then again, if wherever you plan to practice doesn't require a university diploma, then you may well get a better education by steering far clear of the formal institutions! As for myself, this is one piece of bitter I have no choice but to eat.

Actually, these are easy to find and not hugely difficult to obtain. The Chinese government offers a full-ride (plus free housing and living stipend) scholarship to study TCM at the undergraduate level. This means you study the five year introductory program which you will need to complete if you wish to be licensed in the US. You can get this scholarship if you are under 25. It covers several major TCM schools, including Beijing, Shanghai, and a few others. If you get this scholarship they will also support you to study another year of Chinese before entering school, which you will certainly need unless your Chinese is at a very high level already. Both Beijing and Shanghai offer city scholarships which will put you through the five year program if you are under thirty. They cover tuition but not other expenses. Information on the former scholarship is best obtained at www.chinese-forums.com. On the latter, through TCM universities' websites or direct commmunication with their international education offices, all of which have English-speaking staff.

Quick vocabulary question... How do Buddhists define a "mind stream?" Is it something that is depently originated?

I think 武夷山/Wuyi Shan may be one such place. I've had a long article on "Gongfu Cha (Tea)" I've been meaning to read for the longest time, and might finally get around to it now that the semester's over. If it mentions more such places I'll post em up. For my part, the most amazing tea I ever tried was called, in pinyin, Wudang Shan Gan Lv Er Cha (if I recall correctly--I got it on my first trip to China and then spoke no Chinese at all then). It was grown on Wudang and was amazing. I tried it at a small tea house amongst the temples and I was with a friend who smoked. This tea left a subtle sweetness in the mouth and throat of such--what is the word... power, I suppose--that water drank and even a cigarette smoked after drinking a few tiny cups of the tea tasted downright honey-like. And I am talking cheapo 5 yuan/pack Chinese cigarettes, which are about the roughest thing you can put in your lungs aside from Lanzhou weather. Yet the smoke tasted like honeysuckle. I think remarkable teas must grow hidden all over this country, and you never know where you might run into a variety. I've had some really nice Guizhou teas (speaking as no expert), including one my friend picked on the hills near her hometown. You know your tea far better than I, but it strikes me that while what you're saying may be generally true for tea entering the international market, it seems unlikely that good organic tea not coming your way is a question of technology. After all, until very recently in terms of tea's historical roots all tea was organic. Given how tea drove generations of Chinese poets to pick up their brushes I doubt high-quality tea only came into existence after chemical fertilizers and pesticides came on the scene. On top of that, taking my tea master friend as an example, she spends a month or more in Yunnan each year traveling between small mountain villages in search of ancient trees that even the owners of the land they're on might not have realized were tea trees. These leaves she buys, personally picks, personally dries in the sun, and then sells at prices in Shanghai which allow her to spend the rest of her life all year focused on cultivating her understanding of tea and her Buddhist practice. Her teas aren't in any quality to be shipped around the world, but they are clearly enjoyed at a price by afficionados, and are very much organic. How does that work? Doesn't water soluble mean it dissolves in the water? I'd guess such pesticides would have to be washed off, or else you would end up drinking them. Some of the words he might have used that I've heard others using in reference to tea... 口感-kou3gan3-mouth feeling 唇齿留香-chun2chi3liu2xiang1-a nice way to say aftertaste (lip tooth linger fragrant/delicious) 回味-hui2wei4-aftertaste True, and results also depends on how much gongfu you have to draw the subtle essenses and the qi from the tea! My utter lack of tea gongfu meant that Wudang tea I mentioned above wasn't nearly as nice when I inexpertly brewed it myself.