fiveelementtao

First we need to make a distinction between internal and external martial arts. external MA would be primarily physical arts like western boxing or wrestling. As you get older these arts become more difficult because of the strain on the body. Taoists favor internal martial arts because they use internal energy to achieve their objective Besides healing and peace of mind, Taoists also sought long life and immortality. For a Taoist, it is important to achieve immortality because, if one dies before reaching enlightenment, that means he/she may have to be reborn and may have to start all over again. It is better to stay in one body as long as possible to reach your goal more quickly. In order to achieve long life and immortality, one needs to be able to manage and control internal energy. Internal martial arts are a superb way to learn how to gather, harness and increase internal energy. In order for the internal art to be effective, one must be able to verifiably be able to use the internal energy they have accumulated and stored. So, taoist martial arts are not just about fighting, but internal alchemy. Secondly, internal martial arts also teach a way of achieving a dynamic balance mentally, physically and spiritually. Additionally, in China over the centuries ther have been periods where the government has persecuted spiritual movements and practitioners, so it became necessary for taoists to be able to defend themselves.

Mak Tin Si, Thank for this thread on the importance of Taoist Ethics, Can you please explain the importance of Humility, Compassion, Tolerance and Love in Taoism? When does a master teach these ethics to his student? Thank you for your knowledge...

Dwai, is this your opinion or is this historical fact? Is this what practicing a Taoist art means to you? It may mean different things to different people. It's important that we be able to discern our own personal ideals from the actual history. Throughout history, many taoists were also fierce warriors. Throughout history the needs of Taoists changed with the times. In other times, Taoists were mercenaries, soldiers and warrior monks. Some Taoists were even assassins. Times were tough and dangerous and Taoists had to be ready to defend themselves in a dangerous world. If "seeing blood" is against your Taoist ideals, I understand and sympathize, however it may not be a problem for others. Seeing blood may have even been necessary for some to be able to protect themselves and their loved ones in a very dangerous society. I suggest you do a search on the history of Tai Chi, you will see that it was only in the last hundred years that Tai Chi became divorced from its martial origins to become solely an exercise for health. This health focus was primarily brought to the public by Chen Man Ching.

I apologize if I came off critical. I wouldn't ever say anybody is a wannabe. fact is I use Tai Chi for similar reasons as you do. I find it is a great way to ground and balance the Chi I develop in my primary internal art. I have totally bastardized Tai Chi to fit my needs. So, I am the last one to criticize anyone.

Tai Chi is a wonderful, healing art. It is also a tremendous meditation and guide toward harmony. But, to be accurate, the healing aspect of Tai Chi as the primary focus of the art is a relatively new focus. It's historical and traditional aim was a devastating martial art. In it's original form (very hard to find) it was a killing art. When one of the old masters was asked, "What do you think of when practicing your form?" He replied, "I see blood." That doesn't minimize the incredible health benefits and harmonizing meditative properties of the art.

_/\_

ahmed, Is your Mao Shan from the Shang Ch'ing sect?

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Good point. Maybe we should just take out the ISM part. Someone once said to me " ism stands for I Self and Me." If the Tao is infinite, How can it NOT include something? I guess when we put ISM on anything, we limit it...

Mak Tin Si, How is it you do not know how prideful and arrogant you sound when you say.. Do you really not see how that is offensive and arrogant? Really? you do not see that? Nobody said it was ALL of Taoism. Do you mean to say that you know ALL of Taoism? You can't seriously be that arrogant. Listen, my friend, that fact is you HAVE offended many people on this forum. If you are serious when you ask how and don't know how you have been offensive, it is in your best interest to learn how. I was once told my my Tao teacher, "If two or more people say something about you, you must look at yourself in the mirror and ask why they say these things." Many people on this forum have found you to be prideful and arrogant. If this is untrue, it is in your best interest to try to understand how they have gotten this false impression of you... Why do you need to attack yoga? What is wrong with it? I agree Tao is very very big. My friend, Tao includes EVERYTHING even Yoga. Tao also includes much more than fu and ritual also. Tao may be bigger than you think. Many people want very much to learn these things. Bees are attracted to flowers. When you tell people they are not REAL taoists, you put manure on the flowers and the bees are driven away. Do not tell them they are inferior. It is your job to attract people so you can help them. By telling them they need to convert to "REAL" taoism, you make them feel like you are saying they are stupid. I know this is not your intention. If you are true Tao master, you know I have no anger in my heart toward you. Look deep, you will see I am not your enemy. A true friend has the courage to be honest and tell someone the truth. I know that you want to help. be more respectful and more tolerant of the ignorant and you will be able to spread the word of Taoism to more people that need it... I wish you good luck. I know you have much to teach all of us...

Mak Tin Si, _/\_ Thank you for this post. I see that you are sharing your lineage with others. That is good. Now we can see that you are Taoist of a particular lineage. I also see that now you have left room for other people to have a different lineage and you are not comparing yourself to them. In previous posts, you sounded very prideful as though you knew everything about ALL taoism. you sounded disrespectful to others who may have not as much experience as you. Now, I hear that you are only sharing what you were taught in your lineage. I see here a more humble side of you. Thank you for being available to share your knowledge with others and giving respect to different lineages and to people of different amount of Tao education and knowledge. Now, you will see that some people who were offended by you will be more curious and feel welcomed by you. Respecting everyone is also the mark of a Taoist master. Just because some people have only known of Tao from Lao Tzu does not make their experience inferior. Just as you knowing more of Tao history and healing ritual does not make you superior. We are all equal. I'm sure you know this and only want to help people. I wish you good luck getting more students...

Great! I have no problem with that. I'm not telling him not to share... Just don't demean others in the process.. Share whatever you want. I will be as grateful as anyone else.. His knowledge is not the issue. I'm not dismissing his religion at all. I'm dismissing his lack of respect and tact. being a priest doesn't give him a special pass to be disrespectful and demeaning. A priest needs to be more respectful to people. His job is to help. So, as a priest, he needs to be more humble than the rest of us not less humble... Look, let's be real here... If hari krishanas came on taobums saying their way was the best or the only way to God, we would all speak out against that. Just because the guy is taoist priest doesn't give him the right to disrespect anyone else. If you want respect you have to give it. Plus as I have already said. there are many sects of Tao and not all of them agree with each other. So, just because he is taoist priest doesn't mean he speaks for all Taoism. He can only speak for his sect. And even then, I don't even know who he is within his own sect. I don't even know which sect he is from.. I am sure he isn't from mine... If he had said, "In my tradition we believe.." Or " I was taught..." there would be no problem. But, just because he is a priest, doesn't give him any special priviledges. I disagree. This happens all the time. There are so many different Christian sects that have basically done that exact thing. The same is true in taoism. As I have said, I have no disagreement with his info or knowledge, I am only responding to his arrogance... Priest or no priest, it ain't cool.

Nobody is disagreeing with his experiences or info. Most of what he says is really cool and interesting, it's only his attitude of "I am a REAL taoist and you are not." that we are reacting to. There is a superiority and an attitude of comparison. And it sounds just like born again christians. If he were only here to share, we would love it. But when he starts telling everyone that they are not real taoists and he is, he comes off very egotistical. And by the way, Lao tzu rips into religious know-it-alls pretty good. He tore Confucius a new Ahole for the same type of attitude this guy gives. Read his posts again you will find the quotes... "A real taoist has a master, a real taoist is initiated. you can't get tao from books, blah, blah, blah. I never got my Tao from books, I got mine from real masters, I know for a fact this guy does not know some of the stuff I know. But I certainly wouldn't say he's not a taoist. Take that ego crap out of his posts and we would all love what he says and ask him more.

Ya Mu, What people are responding negatively to is not this man's lineage. I for one have enjoyed many of his posts and found them to be very educational. I think we all respect that he is an initiate in a temple. If he were simply sharing his understanding and experiences, everyone would be grateful. But if you look through some of his posts you will see him inferring that the rest of us are not real taoists because we have not been initiated in his sect or learned as he has. I find it very naiive of him that he doesn't even acknowledge that his is only ONE of many taoist sects and that many of those sects probably disagree with his. So, it is not his knowledge or his traditional taoist training that we are objecting to. It is his superior attitude that we find objectionable and very non-taoist.

I wonder if Lao Tzu was initiated... If not, then most taoists have no master!

I have to respond to this. There are MANY sects of Christianity. Some require baptism (initiation) some don't. Technically ANYONE who chooses to follow the teachings of Jesus is a christian. There is a difference between religious taoism and practical taoism. Religious taoism refers to belonging to a group or sect. Practical taoism is about having practical energetic results. Taoism has many different sects. Many religious taoist sects require initiation and have rules to follow. Taoism is also an energetic science. There are many different taoist energetic practices which accomplish different goals. Who cares what other people think about you? If your focus is to gain recognition from others, you have missed the whole point of Tao. I just want people to feel free to explore taoism and taoist energetic practices without feeling "less than" because they haven't been initiated into a philosophical, intellectual or religious "club". Lao Tzu makes it pretty clear that the Tao is available to all.

Here's another good book. My Life with Carlos Castaneda by Amy Wallace I myself read and reread all of castaneda's works for years. His works had a profound impact on me... Unfortunately there is very credible evidence that he was a fraud. A genius, but a fraud....

cool thread

The four element cycle is also 5. earth-water-fire-air-ether(spirit) Here's what I think. The same except that air is metal and ether is wood. There are obvious differences, but if I had to make a transliteration, that's how I would do it. only my guess...

Excellent question... I think the answer is in your question. Simply apply the principles of Tao and continue to honor your Muslim faith. Maybe you can view Allah as the ultimate Taoist Master and ask Allah in your prayers to guide you in the Tao. Tao is an energetic science, not a religion. so you can be a Taoist and worship God any way you choose. _/\_

My opinion based only on my limited experience.... The best we can get is just HUMAN....an enlightened person is simply a kind and loving person PERIOD!.... Anyone who can be kind and forgiving and helpful to others while being honest, humble and real with themselves is as enlightened as it gets... I have trained with numerous "enlightened" masters... ALL of them had ego and limitation. Some were wise and nice people, but I only learned from the ones who knew they were human and shared their struggles with me. in a couple of cases, these "masters" were extremely destructive, egotistical and emotionally immature. This includes even those who have died and ressurrected. This includes even those with astounding supernatural powers. I have not yet met ONE completely enlightened person according to the new agey ideal of being perfect, without emotional flaw and "One" with God. I have met some who were ahead of me in their development, but none of them were bodhisattvas or avatars... NONE! I don't care how energetically advanced they are. To me that is no different than a professional bodybuilder on an energetic level. No matter how powerful or refined our energy is, we still have to confront ego and limitation. I love the saying, "If you see Buddha on the road, kill him." Worshipping teachers IMHO will only stifle spiritual growth and promote emotional denial... I have tremendous difficulty with the hyper generalized definitions like "Conscious" "Aware", "in the moment", "surrendered". These kinds of generalized, intellectualized definitions sound very poetic but, HOW do you do it? I think these kind of hyper idealized new agey ideals only promote emotional denial. People want sooo badly to be free of emotional pain and that's why "Gurus" attract so many people. Don't even get me started on the so called Gurus, like Osho, Tolle etc. who claim to be in constant nirvana.... What a load of CRAP! The closest thing to enlightenment I have found is in books like, The Wandering Taoist, Enter the dragon's Gate, Aghora ... These people only claim to have found energetic systems to reach their highest potential. They still admit to be being human. IMHO, there is NO energetic system that will make a person without flaw or emotional struggles. If someone stays real with themselves, these systems can help tremendously but spiritual disciplines are only tools, they are not the goal. (sigh)... my .02

I posted a reply but it disappeared.... No arguing at all. Just exchanging views. Now that you have explained it, I can see why your mother has difficulty with raw foods. Interesting how the the discussion has come back around to antibiotics.. (thank you Mr Pasteur). I knew that antibiotics can be harmful if overused but I had not idea that it could do that... I heard on a radio show a research Dr. who was saying that recent discoveries have indicated that we have more helpful bacteria in our bodies than cells! He even went so far as to say that asthma may be linked to a reduction of a certain helpful bacteria that has been increasingly missing in humans since the 1920's... He even insinuated that it's good for kids to play in the dirt and even eat it..... That's not what my Mom taught me....

My brother is the same way. As long as he is eating pure grease and cheese and garbage, he can function OK But he is getting more and more sick as he gets older and is on alot of meds for various "conditions". But he is "allergic" to veggies especially raw ones... I was taught (this may not necessarily be "Taoist") that there is a difference between prevention and cure. as a prevention, I was taught to eat raw veggies to maintain health. In terms of cure, during extreme cleansing (illness), raw foods should be introduced slowly so they don't trigger a massive cleansing crisis. Raw food tends to exacerbate any cleansing (illness) that is occurring. for some that is why raw veggies make them feel ill or can temporarily make their conditions worse. because it will stimulate the body to cleanse and for those who do not regularly eat raw foods, this can stimulate extreme cleansing.. so, in their normal state, they may feel OK, but its just that their toxins are neatly tucked away. I agree there is no right or wrong, I see it as personal choice.

You make some good points, Taomeow... I generally agree with them. In my tao training, I was taught that everything in my external environment is a product of my internal environment. So, in terms of karma and illness.. I would agree with your assertions. My point about the medical viewpoint was that even our internal bodily health is a result of our internal spiritual environment. For me, this gives me hope because if I become sick, instead of feeling like a victim to an outside virus, I can say, "oh, here's an opportunity to grow through a spiritual issue." If I choose to use diet or meditation, the end result is I am taking responsibility. I would disagree about diet being absolutely useless in karmic cases, because, changing diet can reflect a desire to take responsibility to balance the internal. This may be the stimulus to burn off the spiritual attachments that resulted in the karma to begin with. It is an external symbol that the spirit can use.. just like the guy who used alcohol to cure himself. Scotch wouldn't work for me because I have karmic attachments to alcohol in my family... Diet would probably work for me in that instance.. I was taught that there are two ways to practice Tao. One is to see ourselves as finite beings manipulating energy from outside of us. and the other is to see all of the entire universe as being within us. I think whichever way we have chosen will color our thinking about these kinds of issues. For those who have chosen the first way. There is only "one" reality. For me, there are many. and the state of my life reflects the issues I need to grow through.. whether that be illness or career or money etc...

I think this in an extremely interesting topic. One of the teachers I worked with was a master yogi, psychotherapist and traditional healer. He works with alot of different diseases and he has had tremendous success with cancer. He treats people with a combination of diet and psychological treatment. with a heavy emphasis on diet. For those interested, I suggest looking up the theories of Antoine Beauchamp. To put it succinctly: Our modern view of illness is a product of the theories of Louis Pastuer which says that illness is a product of foreign "contaminants" which invade and infect our bodies and cause illness. So, his theory was that if you attack the foreign contaminants (symptoms), you will kill the disease. However as we can see, our modern approach of attacking symptoms rarely addresses the causes of imbalance. It often only temporarily relieves the symptoms. There was another contemporary of Pastuer named Antoine Beauchamp. Pasteur actually stole Beauchamp's work and substituted it as his own, but he mistakenly interpreted the results. Beauchamp concluded that illness is a result of the body being toxic and therefore creating a suitable environment for things like bacteria to grow. In his mind, he felt that if you kept the body clean and free of toxins, then bacteria has nothing to feed on. In the ensuing battle among the intellects of the day, Pastuer won out which is why modern western medicine works on the invader theory rather than the environment theory. This mirrors the western religious idea of that day which says that the Devil (an outside force) tempts us away from God. Rather than the idea that we delude ourselves from within and attract negativity to us. When a person comes to my teacher with cancer, he tells them that cancer is merely a symptom of toxicity in the body. It is actually a sign of a healthy, functioning immune system. He teaches that cancer is simply the natural effect of the body expelling excess toxins and waste. He will put them on strict regimen of raw vegetables and juicing and herbs and explore any emotional issues that may be helping to hinder the body's healing abilites. He teaches that if you reverse the toxicity, the cancer will dissappear. He has had incredible success with "fatal cases" that had been told they had little or no time left to live. He teaches that, many of the symptoms of diseases are a result of toxins backing up in the body and in this condition, the organs responsible for excreting toxins are overloaded and they shut down, which results in debilitating symptoms. We feel sick, but the imbalance has been going on for a long time before we notice it. There was also a man named Gunther Enderlein who took Beauchamp's theories even farther, he was able to show in his experiments that the natural helpful biological agents within the body can morph from helpful agents into disease causing agents depending on the acidity of the body. He proposed that an acidic environment encouraged the transformation of helpful microbes into bacteria then into fungi then into viruses. So, from this perspective disease comes from within. So, for me, the idea that someone else can contaminate me with their sick energy only works if I believe that idea. If I am clean within, there is no suitable environment for any sickness to take hold and grow within me. recent research has well documented that indulging in negative emotions and stress greatly hinders the body's ability to heal. Whereas, working through emotional issues and meditating on "good" feelings can greatly increase the body's ability to heal. So, back to the question: The only way I can catch a cold is if my body has enough food for it to feed on. If I keep my mind and body healthy, (Depending on which theory you believe) then viruses will have no food and cannot take hold. If I believe Enderlein, then if I do get a virus, I actually created it inside of me and I am fully responsible for it to begin with. Case in point: has anyone ever heard about certain medications which include "viral infections" as a side effect? If viruses come from outside, then how can taking a medication cause a "viral infection"? To me it seems simple, the medication is toxic and creates a suitable environment for the "viral infection" to grow from within me... here is a good resource page http://www.unhinderedliving.com/germtheory.html