Walker

Thanks! I think I might have mistakenly written that there is licorice root where there is actually bai zhu, so if you can please send it to me and I will double-check and make changes if need be before putting it here. (Like I said, herbs weren't my specialty--I'm more of a bodywork/acupuncture/yangsheng student) What they're talking about makes perfect sense, if the person has already fallen ill. Using defensive qi-tonifying herbs like astragalus after one has already fallen ill is called 閉門留寇, which means "locking the door after the burglar is already in your house." Not a good idea, because artificially strengthening defensive qi when pathogenic qi is in the body causing a disease disrupts the body's ability to expel pathogens, which it will typically try to do with fever and sweating to start with. I knew a thief back in my wild days who illustrates this story perfectly. He was stealing from a small convenience store when the owner (who I'm guessing was in one of those bulletproof cashier fortresses in order to think this was a good strategy) had the bright idea of locking the only exit and calling the cops. Needless to say, my friend--who actually went by the name "Rebel," hah--went on a rampage until he found a heavy enough trashcan to throw through the front window. He smashed the window and escaped, leaving the shop owner with tons more damage to pay for than there'd have been if he'd just cut his losses and let the kid get away with whatever he was after--which would be like letting yourself have a good sweat with a formula that has ma huang if you've just gotten sick. So yes, Chinese herbal formulas for a person who's already sick are quite different from preventative formulas (and that's part of the reason why the formulas above can be dangerous--they're full of ingredients meant to get stuff out of you, and those are not herbs to be played with). "Jade [wind]screen" is definitely contraindicated once a person begins to show even subtle symptoms.

I don't see why not, just like sharing the bathwater with my brothers when I was a wee one!

Ewwwwwwwww... I'd think Heartbreak's very own patented Taoistic Miracle Siddhi Youth Serum would give you more bang for your buck. So young, so pent up, so angsty... all love, no lust... this is pure stuff! I'd pay $50 for a gallon, although I might could spend my money on one of those Gwyneth Paltrow candles instead. Choices, choices!

I think you should be, but that is not really a topic for this discussion. Succinctly: it is well documented that Amazon's Alexa and similar technologies (including Apple's Siri and even Skype) are being used to spy on people, collect massive amounts of data, build dossiers on individuals, and generally feed the AI machine. Alexa, et al, are fairly easily hacked, and provide a window into your family's (including small children's, who cannot consent to forfeit privacy) daily lives, which can be exploited by pedophiles, blackmailers, and totalitarians. Naomi Klein has written extensively about "disaster capitalism;" great research on "surveillance capitalism" hit the mainstream last year; www.theintercept.com is a great place to learn about these things, with excellent reporting. If you wish to learn more I am happy to share concrete links, but please start another thread. What @mitzy posted above is interesting, but the majority of it is not preventative herbal medicine, and those formulas are full of herbs that are poisonous if used incorrectly, as well as at least one herb that cannot legally be purchased in the US. Nobody should play around with ban xia, ma huang, ku xing ren, or ren shen as they can easily produce strong side effect. Only the "prevention phase" formula is fairly safe to take without a prescription. It is based on the "Jade Screen Formula" that I wrote about before. @Taomeow, can you please paste here or PM to me the text of what I wrote about that formula in the now-missing thread? I spend a fair amount of time writing that and I did not want it to disappear. Thank you!

Well, Broken Hearted one, I must confess that I am not a Semen Practitioner, but fear not, they do exist. The person you seek is Master Shifu Stella Ralfini. Here is one of her articles, which I'm sure you'll find as refreshing as a cool rain splish-splashing upon your cheeks on a sultry summer's afternoon (it starts with a reference to Daoism! Wow!) : Well, let us know how your skin looks after trying this one! P.S. if you meet and White Tigress Society ladies during your adventures, please ask them where their secret clubhouse is and when is a good time to visit, thanks!

I'm no Nostradamus, but if China has 1.4 billion people and let's say 50,000 dead from covid (because I don't believe the official stats there I'm making an uneducated, unscientific liberal guestimate) having made all the blunders they did, I just don't see big numbers being likely in the US. Of course everybody should be careful when possible, but... Let's keep our feet on the ground here. As for SJ's book, sure I'd read it, I think he's less full of bullshit than he thinks I think he is

Y'all need to chillllllllll the fuck out, ain't no 5 million Americans gonna die from this shit, if 5,000 die I promise I will buy your book. China is a filthy, extremely densely populated, still-very-poor country with pretty terrible hospitals, almost no private clinics, and widespread awful sanitation habits. In the *medical school* I graduated from, which was a "211 Project Key University" near downtown in the nation's capital, every single shelf in the library stacks had a sign on it that said "please do not spit in the stacks." That that even needed to be said at all tells you what kind of habits prevail there! Another example: *no* bathrooms on this entire medical school campus had soap. *Most* bathrooms in the hospitals we visited did not have soap in the bathrooms, including even in the in-patient wards... Again, this was the situation in "top" hospitals in Beijing less than three years ago! After some foreign students complained, they put soap in the intl college's lobby bathroom, but nowhere else--this is how public health problems get dealt with, lipstick on a pig. Examples I could make like the above are endless. I hardly need to explain what passes for wiping off a restaurant table or doing dishes in your average restaurant, and of course there is communal sharing of spit with chopsticks at meals. Add to these realities all of the commie bureaucrat cover-ups in Wuhan and you get what we've seen there. To be honest nothing about how the epidemic unfolded surprised me. I wish I could say otherwise but the PRC is a shitshow and I've got close to no respect for how the CCP governs that nation. Now, Trump is an idiot who has gutted many of the mechanisms of the state, sure, but America is simply nothing like the PRC. 5,000,000 Americans will become Daoist immortals or kill each other with guns while fighting over toilet paper at Costco before they die of covid, I'll put money on that.

Your level of self-delusion is astounding. I agree with those who have questioned your sanity here. I don't mean that as an insult. I mean that as a splash of ice water in your face, even though the likelihood of these words having such an effect is minimal. Probably best to leave it at that. Good bye, silly man.

In Buddhism, "emptiness" can most easily be understood as "emptiness of" two things which most humans habitually impute in objects and phenomena they encounter: 1. Separate existence 2. Permanence In other words, and in very simple terms, when a Buddhist says things are empty, this means things are: 1. Existent entirely on the basis of causes and and conditions external to the thing itself (ie, "un-separate") 2. Impermanent The interpretation of the word emptiness that you use to inform your posts about Buddhism in this thread is, in the context of Buddhism, a fundamental and grievous misinterpretation. You mistakenly understand the word as a statement on the ultimate nihilism of things. It is not that. Your misinterpretation is so basal that it nullifies everything else you just said. Please learn more about Buddhism before holding forth about Buddhism. If any students of Buddhism here can supplement or critique my attempt to speak about the word śūnyatā (which is quite often presented incorrectly in this forum), please do so.

That was certainly very interesting. But... Can you define what śūnyatā means in a Buddhist context? (You seem to be using "empty" in its standard, day-to-day sense in English)

Do you know what the word "emptiness," from the Sanskrit śūnyatā, means in a Buddhist context? Can you please explain your understanding of this term by offering your definition of its meaning in Buddhism? I ask you these questions because your answer leads me to think you do not know what śūnyatā means to Buddhists. Before I write anything else I would like to make sure I have not misunderstood what you are trying to say.

Who knows. Would-haves-could-haves to me are not very important. My posts are here because it feels appropriate to me to have written what I have here written. I don't know what the resulting eventualities may be. Mostly I have done my best and thus far stand by my words. What unfolds will unfold. In any case, many people do get harmed by false teachers, and I have had a taste of such dangers myself, in addition to witnessing the sad stories of people who got taken in very deep. So yes, people really can and do get "messed up," all over the world, every day. Leaving aside all talk of young Josh and what he might be up to, if all the verbiage in this thread gives pause to just one person who is on the cusp of falling into a cult, then this thread has been of some use.

I appreciate that some people like the name Daoist and I don't think we need an e-pogrom to eliminate all casual usage of that label. But, since few visitors to this site may have any other chance to hear a more traditional viewpoint about these things, I feel pulled to share what I have been taught, especially when in conversation with people who have moved far beyond "I am a Daoist because I resonate with Benjamin Hoff's books" to realms that include, explicitly or implicitly, "I am a teacher or religious personage." I would think the same approach might be called for with, for instance, terms like "Dzogchenpa."

I feel that and I generally agree with ST's point in terms of the "source." But the tradition of Daoism is not itself the Dao. It is full of highly complex and even technical teachings. Touching/glimpsing "source," imo, is no more a guarantee that you will gain any understanding of an inner-door Daoist meditation or magic teaching than it is a guarantee that you will know how to operate a Boeing 737. The spirit of what you say below is precisely what has caused me to harp on this point so tenaciously: (I understand you or another might reply, "but now Dzogchen teachings are quite open, the days of one-master-one-disciple have passed," to which I can only say: true indeed, but that does not mean people can understand these teachings without actually being taught them by a qualified guide. Moreover, we see plenty give themselves labels formally reserved for initiates without actually even being familiar with what is "open source" in these traditions, to say nothing of what still remains a secret...)

In a playful way, hence choice of word used by Mary Poppins and addition of smiley face.......... Anywayyyy...... Well, no method works for everybody, no method can deal with every or even a majority of challenges to human health, and a multitude of factors we aren't aware of are always in play. That said... Was the way you practiced very similar to what I described in the first post? If not please point out the differences. They may have been relevant as to the question of why I and others have gotten pronounced results from the method in this thread, while you did not from the method you used.

Well, get cold enough and you'll stop moving forever! I'm sure there are important nuggets in that document. This shaking method can never be more than just a small contribution to vitality and immunity... As the part of your quote I put in bold reminds us, building a strong constitution and fully recovering from an illness is a big question involving lots of factors. For this reason (not at directing this at any particular person) I have to emphasize that the shaking method is not a panacea nor a replacement for medical treatment. That disclaimer aside, the people I know who've used it as I described report powerful effects.

Huh?? I would have thought using a smiley face and a ridiculous term like "tut-tut" would have made it clear I was joshing you. That said, in case it is not clear: I in no way believe that this method is guaranteed to prevent the contraction of any specific infection. I am merely sharing this method because of personal experience and anecdotal experience of close, trusted friends which indicates that it has a remarkable immune boosting effect. I have no absolute opinions about what it can or will do for others who use it. Nor should anybody interpret the point of this post to be a comment on the pros and cons of vaccinations, or the offering of an "alternative" to vaccines. Sheesh. Jokes aside, Ralis, if you wish to talk about vaccinations, smallpox, or anything unrelated to this shaking technique may I please suggest starting a new thread so that this one may remain focused on the technicalities of this method ? Thank you.

You're welcome--please keep us posted if you end up trying this for a few weeks and notice (or don't notice) any changes. I really don't know, but I am sure there are differences between following the directions of this movement and using a rebounder. I have never used a rebounder but I can say that the primary "movement of qi" that the shaking exercise here operates through is "scattering" (from 散/san; the other movements of qi include rising, & falling, opening & closing, exiting & entering, while scattering is paired with gathering; link). Scattering with this shaking method has, evidently, been great for my immune system and some friends' as well. But as with all things in life there can be too much of a good thing; too much scattering may lead to a temporary exhaustion of your "right[ening] qi." Also, if you get too sweaty and your pores are all open after you shake, that will create a new opportunity for pathogenic wind-cold qi to enter. So, in sum, with the method I described here please remember: 1: No need to do too much. 2: Beware shaking unto the point of being very sweaty and tired. If you get sweaty and tired, immediately towel dry after practice and take extra special care to avoid exposure to cold wind/drafts and make sure to dress warmly. Ralis! You, of all people, going off topic!?!? Tut-tut Haha, you are welcome. Did you actually need advice? Hmm. I may have to contradict myself here and ask if what you need isn't... a cold draught?

This is a short but potentially important post for Daoists to consider. A story shows up several times in the various writings of the Wu-Liu school (伍柳派) of Daoist inner alchemy that discuss a master considered to have been highly accomplished. When, during a drought, villagers approached this immortal and begged for succor, he merely pointed at the sky and it darkened and produced rain. On the other hand, there is another important Daoist "weather magician," Bai Yuchan (白玉蟾), who was even better known as an adept of inner alchemy. Interestingly, I do not believe that he eschewed with ritual despite being extremely highly accomplished in neidan (by Ma Danyang's account, Bai Yuchan was one of Wang Chongyang's three immortal teachers--note, by the way, that none of them appeared as disembodied voices, but in the flesh). In fact, despite his evident predilection for wandering around looking like a filthy bum, there is written record of Bai being tapped to lead a huge ritual quite late in life. I have not read them but I believe some of Bai Yuchan's writings on weather magic still exist (his voluminous poetry and some other writings are still around, too). It would be interesting to see whether these texts involve commanding low level spirits, or are built on a practitioner's own abilities, on the basis of inner alchemy training. I have heard in conversation that the latter is the case, but that's an open question to me.

Well, I disagree with the first sentence, generally speaking. I don't think there are very many people on earth who can "point the way," although I will say that almost everybody does have quite a bit of wisdom, some an awful lot. But there is a gulf between most people's worldly wisdom and, for instance, what Laozi or Shakyamuni or other great sages pointed to. As for the second sentence, yes, I agree. The point I have been trying to make is that "the wisdom of their path" is not the same as "the wisdom of the Daoist path." Sure were are all "in/of the Dao." But that universal truism in and of itself does not bless us all with innate knowledge of what is passed down in Daoism. I brought up Wang Liping because it seemed likely to me that if you have taken his classes, you would have heard things from him that more than 99 percent of humans don't know anything about. I was referring to the financial commitment. My understanding is that his classes cost a few thousand US dollars to attend, a sum that counts as quite a commitment for all but the very wealthy. I did not use this word to imply a commitment or a bond like marriage or parenthood. I was not being dismissive. I was being serious. I wanted to know if you think that any old person in LA could teach you the things that Wang Liping is privy to. I mentioned skid row because of the poverty, and I was wondering why not just give the money to a beggar if, in the end, everybody has access to the same knowledge and wisdom just by virtue of being alive. An interesting story, and surely he is/was an interesting man. But, relating to my question about skid row, from this I glean two things. 1, Whatever his wisdom and wit, Earl probably did not understand the inner teachings of Wang's branch of Dragon Gate Daoism. 2, In fact, even though he might have been homeless, there was nothing random about your happening to give lots of money to Earl. He, like Wang, received a unique education (I'm guessing he had a PhD if he used to be a professor, and it sounds like he was a student of life in general). In Earl's case that education filled him with "pearls of wisdom" that you valued. I glean from this that even though you advocate that everybody is as close to "source" as anybody else, you also recognize that different individuals may possess unique knowledge that other do not possess. Well, I did not bring up Wang to try and compel you to justify where and why you spend money, but I can see how it might have looked like that. My point, generally, is that different people on earth possess different types of knowledge. As this relates to Daoism in specific, my point is that teachers who passed through thorough discipleships with masters tend to be taught knowledge and trained in practices that are far beyond the scope of most of humanity's knowledge and experience. This is one reason I believe it can be important to be discerning about who is and who is not a qualified Daoist teacher... this type of questioning is probably not merely a question of "insecurity," as you said before that it might be.

Now, now. This is really a very basic and widespread Daoist teaching. You have denied yourself the benefit of an education in the tradition you claim to be a part of, so it makes sense that you do not see this. I suspect you are not really asking for an answer, but here it is all over again: I may well not measure up against Zhuge Liang, whoever he really was long before novels, plays, movies, telenovelas, video games, and mangas turned him into something else. That does not mean you are talking to Zhuge Liang. Nor does it mean that Zhuge Liang became a Daoist immortal. This convoluted logic does nothing to dispel the fact that in Daoism, as taught from one human to another, there is a great degree of secrecy. As I already explained in this thread, despite the advent of the internet and the interaction of thoroughly modern students with this very old tradition, many indispensable teachings in many different sub-traditions within Daoism (including especially magic) remain secret. Thus, A person who has not found a teacher will not know many things, nor even know roughly the nature of the things that he or she does not know. As always, best to find a teacher. I know you're not happy with what I'm saying now, but perhaps one day if your path changes dramatically that will change. It is not about that. To the Daoists I know who teach within the contexts of lineages, while there is certainly a recognition of different levels of transmission, achievement, study, accomplishment, and virtue among different people (i.e., even though "everything is Dao" on a certain level, that does not mean Daoists cannot tell the difference between a novice and a master), there is not an inordinate focus on hierarchy. Also, I don't even think being taught and initiated into Daoism makes one's "spirituality more valid." It just makes a person actually a Daoist, and it means he or she knows what is taught in Daoism, and has an actual opportunity to practice those teachings. The alternative for self-"initiates" may be relying upon books, imagination, and disembodied voices that could be anything from an imaginary friend to a mental illness to a demon to an immortal. Wait, which am I, haughty or humble? I would guess I come across more as haughty than humble. I doubt my ego is hidden. I'm pretty sure it's pretty clear what kind of person I am. After all, I did start out in this thread being an unabashed asshole to you, and I haven't gone back and tried to cover that up, even though I now realize that it would have been better if I had exercised more wisdom and magnanimity. You are of the Dao, and so is everybody here, and everywhere. So... All 8,000,000,000 of us monkeys are Daoists? Anyway, once again, you have not availed yourself of the opportunity to learn within this living tradition (your choice, no problem with that), therefore you do not really know its essential ingredients, and yet you act as a loud spokesperson for it. I see this as problematic. Hence my counterpoints. If the above still doesn't make sense, well, consider that last night I had a dizzy spell and when I woke up the ghost of Thomas Jefferson was speaking to me and told me I am a Freemason. I bought Ben Franklin and the Chamber of Time and have worked my way up to the 38th degree on my own. If you will not accept that I am a Freemason, you must be a spiritual materialist. I hope you got it on sale and wear it till it wears out. Better for your wallet, and the environment. As for being flashy, this reminds me of something... Have you not noticed a certain paradox, Josh, in that quite a good many people who announce "I am me, I do whatever I want, I don't care what other people think, my life is the epitome of liberty" somehow--immediately after announcing how free they are from all the traps and trappings of human group dynamics--then proceed point at a certain group and say, "therefore I am so free that I belong to ______ people!" It's quite a paradox! Somehow a group identity remains a craving of he who is in the process of telling the world how he marches to the beat of his own drummer, others' opinions be damned! Daoism, oh so often, is what fills in the blank in that sentence above. This is not a phenomenon that started with you, Josh, nor will it end with you. You can read about this "tradition" you may unwittingly be a part of here. Again, given your apparent affinity for Daoism I hope you actually get to learn from a teacher within it some day, but if you choose not to, well, it's your life to live, shiny new double-breasted blazer and all.

"Yes but you see I am a scientological genius so in fact no."

This has almost nothing to do with xing-ming cultivation in Daoism, sorry. 不要以謬傳謬，二屄。

I think there is a fundamental difference, not merely a difference in emphasis. If I may attempt to paraphrase, I believe Freeform is trying to explain that the interaction of non-dual awareness with the many layers of human being (including the physical) via methodology taught by a teacher of inner alchemy will cause these aspects of being (including the body) to transform. The transformations in question are tangible and profound; they are not simply shifts in viewpoint or identification expressed in poetic terms. The state of mind/realization that Dwai alludes to is indeed an indispensable component of xing-ming cultivation, but it is not an end unto itself according to the teachings of Daoist inner alchemy (the state Dwai discusses may be considered an end in other traditions, however).