宁

What I've been noticing in China, in both Chinese Taoist and Indian Hindu communities, is that they always refer to their training as being part of their faith/national culture. Much has been interationalized, I agree. However when I proposed the Chinese Taoists to learn some Yoga, I got the same reaction as when I proposed the Hindu Yoga practitioners to learn some Taiji: polite smiles. In the West we treat these practices as collectibles, I was so embarrased, I realized I was acting like a kid trying to exchange toys...

Taoism is a religion. What is peculiar (but not unique) about this religion is it has many practical aspects, that you can borrow and use even if you are of a different faith. Because of its practicality people confuse it with a 'way of life', however in its very essence, Taoism is still a religion, many of its practical aspects (the higher up you go, the deeper you go into the religious aspects) need a firm belief in its mythology in order to work. Like yin and yang, taiji, five elements, the immortal saints. There's no shame in admitting that.

Nice, Walker, that's what gets people going, stories like that. You see, every master, however enlightened, has always respected tradition and its rules, they don't break the customs, they uphold them, because they are part of the people, and part of that culture, it is their duty to do so. In that, China, however enormous, and the Chinese, wherever they may be scattered as a people, are bound to it. Its coercive force is what gives them identity. The punishments (metaphysical or otherwise) are severe, 天机不可泄露。 Don't 'Zen' me out, bro', I'm but the messenger 善言不美 美言不信

Haha, nice one. Yes, well Chinese love foreigners (if American even better), helping or teaching foreigners is a kind of a raise in their prestige, so most of the time we are a means to an end, real friendships are fabulously rare. Most of the guys involved in Taoism and Taoist inner alchemy that I met can't help sneer (occasionally) at qigong practitioners/masters. Most time they are extremely polite, and just as their classics, it's really hard to tell what they mean in fact, for instance when they praise you, for that you'd have to be around when you're not supposed to, lol

Iradie, there are many foreigners that have Chinese masters, many of them are kind people. So what? Their tradition however is very strict and what I shared here is what Chinese speak between themselves, in the inner circles. I am aware that it makes people uncomfortable, but please don't take it as some sort of attachment on my part to whatever, it's just me reporting back from my field work. These aren't xenophobic people (not in their own view anyways), but people that are very proud of and a bit overly protective to their national cultural treasures. The ones that I quote are one of the more open ones, they allowed me to partake to their discussion. Haha. They are not 'bad' Chinese. They are willing to share, and, sometimes, in rare moments of utter sincerity, they will tell you that what they shared thus far is nothing more than 皮毛。 You can take this with disdain and distrust, or you can look it in another way: there's a humongous corpus of knowledge that we don't have access to, yet. And we have no idea what it is. I find that exhilarating. It's like a sad good news, haha.

I hear ya, yet the mainland community continues to be adamant about it, nothing to the devils haha. I found HK and Taiwan people to be alot friendlier.

The above (current) discussions represent the current mindset of Chinese inner alchemy community (including headmasters of important schools, not all but most, some of them teach some stuff overseas, for a good pay). I tried them out over and over, they're not just saying it, they actually mean it. It's not the statements that I find interesting, though, it's the implications. Much in line with what Chen used to say. I'd say you need three things to succeed: the blood, the fate and the money. Anyway this is only my current understanding (however informed it may be, it is subject to change over time), it's not meant to refute other positions, only to complement, if needed. Otherwise it can just be discarded, I could care less take what you need, discard what you don't

天地 13:15:01 中国绝学不传外国人 大家谨记 天童 13:15:35 @天地 骗人吧 好多东西已经传外了 幸福简单易失去℡ 13:15:55 还绝学呢 中国人都不会 天地 13:16:05 那只是普传的 天童 13:16:35 @天地 好多大师在国外 天地 13:16:37 已经传外了，满地都是神仙了 天地 13:17:53 好多大师在国外。想张洪宝那样的大师都在国外，忽悠外国人 天地 13:21:55 绝学不能传外国人 lk 13:22:54 狭隘，看看遍地十字架，很多外国大师向中国跑。 珈侬 13:23:18 想传也传不了，没中国的思维方式，老外学不去的，当然天童除外 醉眼观浮世 13:24:36 未必 珈侬 13:24:39 我翻译不了，英文没那么好，会看，会写一点点 醉眼观浮世 13:24:55 会意 而已 虚无 13:24:59 天地走了，可惜 天童 13:32:03 @虚无 是可惜，不想惹他了 更遗憾的应该是他的思维方式 很多丹道道家的东西已经在国外是能够学的不错 许多和尚道士在国外普及了中国的国宝，当时，八十年代之前你们中国还没允许练或者研究这方面的传统文化，不过在国外他们很受欢迎了 虚无 13:32:40 他说的是真的 天童13:33:27 恐怕不能这么确定的说吧 虚无13:33:51 真懂的都清楚 、传出去的都是些皮毛·

the people that invented the concept of inner teachings think they are not a choice you can make, but a matter of destiny, and they teach and act accordingly, if you have fate with them, they will open up, to what extent, it could only depend of the nature of your 'fate' with that specific teaching my take is you couldn't know

I respect your view, Walker, and as I said, there are exceptions, this much I know, happy you found yours Chen's story should be read by people with no grasp of Chinese Taoism, because it's not just the metaphysics, it's the traditional culture that comes embedded into, and as I'm sure you know, failure to grasp that results in it's very essence evading you, because you'll end up equating key terms to Western concepts into which they don't translate at all or only in part. Planet China, heh? (btw, there are some 派 that want their materials translated into English) 任法融, the head of the Chinese National Daoist Association, once spoke about the relevance of a 汉字 to Daoist culture and comprehension of Chinese metaphyisics; he kept on and on for three hours. Three hours conference about one single word. That's why I support your view, biographies like Chen's are much needed as bibliography for Daoist wannabe's, if you want to play this game with seriousness, worry not about too much but about too little information.

Thanks Walker, that was a great post!, I agree with many of the ideas mentioned here, knayoumean hehe. I'll play the naysayer for the sake of argument, polarity is what gives birth to movement and life Fact still remains that both Chen and Hu died without almost any noticeable cultivation accomplishments (by classical standards - in fact Hu was senile at the time of his death, or suffered from early stage of dementia, not clear, while Chen suffered from stomach illness, his wife, a fellow practitioner, died of breast cancer). And the policy against teaching foreigners is still widespread. In rare instances that they agree to teach you somethings you'll only be a student, not a disciple. To become disciple you need alot more conditions and credentials, or an incredible fate with that teacher. There is also 'the red envelope policy', which is normal and part of Chinese tradition. Sincerity is often measured by the thickness of that envelope, and if you lack such means, you have to compensate proportionally with hard work - IF they consider you eligible, and even then you can't be sure about the depth of the teachings that you receive. Most of the times you're being taught simple methods behind closed doors, taking vows of secrecy for things that you should be able to find already in print in the Western Daoist literature (or on a quick 百度search) It's lack of critical thinking that got me in trouble in the past, not lack of trust and confidence, my take is that when examining something, someone or a situation you should look at it from other perspectives that the most obvious ones, for your own sake. 'Tis a combination of different perspectives that may result in the 3D image / understanding you need to make informed decisions. Aha, I see. Surround yourself with crowds of the suffering (meditating in front of a ER section of a hospital would be my choice for you), whilst yourself sit on an empty stomach (not mind), and tell me how the Tao appears to you then. When I eat potato chips and drink soda on a couch in front of the TV I feel closer to Tao than ever, so I dig you point

I'm glad at least someone grasped the Tao, please enlighten us, master.

They call it patriotism. Not so sure about the last two assertions.

Iradie 道友，你真有老师的气质啊 真常守太清 21:36:15 道德经翻译的固然不难 参同悟真就难了 天童 21:41:50 参同悟真 已经被翻译过了 http://www.goldenelixir.com/press/trl_02_ctq.htmlFabrizio Pregadio 西方专家学者，挺厉害的 天童 21:43:54 他又翻译了悟真 曾跟他联系过 帮过我些 关于我的毕业论文 给我提过几个很有用的建议 炼钢21:46:19 为何要翻译给洋鬼子看呢 天童 21:46:32 对了 我曾的毕业论文题目就是 《灵宝毕法》的原版和翻译版的对比，分析了里面的术语， 慕羽 21:48:18 中国人都看不懂，还翻译成外文，骗人啊 天童 21:49:08 你太小瞧外国人，随意 慕羽 21:52:12 翻译者懂参同悟真吗？如此翻译，岂不是骗外国人？ 炼钢 21:53:07 半吊子翻译给半吊子 慕羽 21:53:18 就像早年翻译了易经，外国人就以为懂了中国的易经，真笑死人了 Today's discussion, I'll let you decide what's what

Yes, nice Another thing my Chinese friends (I visit some forums) are only happy to remind me about 陈撄宁 is his fierce reffutal of the idea of teaching foreigners these 国宝。A view still shared even among the most openminded, as I found out later. Unless your teacher is not from 大陆。Of course, there are a few exceptions.

I would go with that, for most of us. I discovered that if you take 5 minutes a day (after you take the shower seems more motivating) to do a set of 100 cross crunches you will develop a nice set of 6 packs in less than half a year ('course it depends of the size of your belly). Looks a helluva lot better than a LDT too! Plus, if you do it with breath sync, you can pack up some inner pressure that would at least account for health benefits. I would also go with the physical sinking in the LDT as a stimuli for the energetic sinking - you can find many movements in taiji for that. What you store in seated meditation you'd have to circulate in moving meditation (or at least standing), you'll know why when you do it. IME

气龙，别忘了，老外真外

I find myself agreeing with this, for some reason. I experienced the sinking of the Qi (in the lower abdomen) via Taijiquan, something that didn't happen as effectively with any of my prior practices. The taiji daolu can be as a frame, containing a whole system therein. It depends on the depth of the teaching that you receive.

Sadly so.

Thank you for that, I had a good laugh this morning! My work here is done. No intent to belittle your efforts, looks like nice poetry.

Hope you are proficient in 文言文， and ancient spoken Chinese. Let him speak his language and let us decide on the translation. Otherwise heed the saying: From the mouth of the profet tis but the profet's words cometh out.

Hey Wudang is a good place to travel, I'll prolly go just to kinda arogantly sneer at the learning 'authentic Daoism' crowd lol Don't care much for 长城 兵马俑 等 but I'll take a shot at the new and improved Wudang. Even the bricks and cement there couldn't be older than 10-15 years... So much was lost. I remember the last trip at the Shaolin temple, the Pagoda Forest had some new additions, aside the traditional old brick constructions you can witness monstrosities made of concrete that have new religious simbols drawn, like camera and laptop. Couldn't believe it myself!

Oh that. I'm sure the poster meant something entirely different.

Not sure what u mean, post some of yr findings.