Oolong Rabbit

Nice pics Lin! I like the one of the willow trees. How far is the temple from where you are staying? Was this your week long retreat?

Cam, please post your paypal account and I will drop 20 bucks in your hat. Not much, but it's a start. Maybe we can at least get you enough to get there, and you can work the fee out with Chen.

I will strongly second that. It's succinct, well written and in plain English. Liao also uses some great metaphors ('chi turbine' etc.. ) that make the concepts very accessible to westerners. This book helped me verify some things that I had begun intuitively doing.

Sorry guys my home pc motherboard died. I would have opted fro Krishnamurti, but too late now I guess.

Eva Wong discusses sun gazing, moon gazing and other taoist techniques to absorb chi from nature in the Shamballa Guide to Taoism that we are discussing in the book club.

We already have enough book recs for the second selection, but perhaps a great idea for the third would be Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book by Daniel Ingram. Ian posted the link to this a few days ago. It's online, it's free and from what I have read so far, it is terrific. The whole E-Book thing would eliminate people having to wait etc.... In fact, can I remove my entry for Kelsang Gyatso's Clear Light of Bliss and add this in it's place Steve? I think this book would be much more beneficial to the Taobums community. http://www.interactivebuddha.com/mctb.shtml PDF Version MS Word Version

Lin, Do any of the Tibetan Buddhist sects use sexual cultivation? I mean is a "Dakini" just used metaphorically?

Bah, I practice tai chi at the ocean all the time. It feels awesome, and I get a good vibe. Niagra Falls may be different, but if he is meditating downstream I think he would be fine. Dan, promise us you won't try to sit and meditate directly under the falls compadre! At least not without an umbrella.

Is that his problem, or ours?

So what do you guys think of Eva Wong's description of internal alchemy? I think she gives more than most of what I have read anywhere else, and in plain english. She doesn't spell everything out, but I think altogether she gives enough clues that you can start putting some pieces of the puzzle together. Still not sure I would recommend experimenting with it willy nilly though.

It shows fine for me. I believe you need to download an optional microsoft language pack for Asian characters.

I am guessing the air will be pretty well saturated with negative ions which is supposed to be very good for meditation etc...

Hi Todd, Well good point, and to be honest I can't really answer. I guess I was operating under the assumption that when 'time' seems to disappear during meditation that the mind was still and just kind of stops. Now you have got me reconsidering it. Again, I am by no means greatly skilled at meditation, and I can't speak on some of the deeper levels because I probably haven't even touched them. This natural curiosity you describe seems similar to some of the taoist concepts of being constantly aware, but I don't know if they would go so far as to call it a 'curiosity'. My understanding is that this is achieved by lessening the clutter in the mind to the point of emptiness. Once the mind has emptied you have no buffer between yourself and the tao. You don't think, you just act. Here's my question, can 'curiosity' be seperated from the ego?

Empty? Hollow? Jeez, so half the Taobums probably would have been commited! I guess my issue with psychology has always been that it's not really a science, but tries to pass itself off as one. I am not sure about the United States, but psychology in Canada is part of the arts program. I mean if you want to study the brain using scientific methods, study neuroscience. This abstract metaphysical concept of the "psyche", well I am just not so sure that you can adequately study it using empirical tools. Anyhow, I will shut up about it now . BTW, see what happens when you try to make a brief comment about mental masterbation on Taobums? You get sucked into the intellectual maelstrom. Haha

You have made me curious. I am googling the brainwaves in sleep vs meditation :-). Yes but you only recognize the cessation after the fact. Sorry Todd, I still just see the curiosity as a vehicle or a tool to bring one to the path. Try entering meditation and focus on how curious you are about what's going on, and I am willing to bet your meditation will not be very deep. Of course some meditations like Zen use natural curiosity as a tool within the meditation, but again it's a means, not an end. Tell you what Todd, you take the path of natural curiosity, and I will stick to meditation. Whoever reaches enlightenment first gets a Coke on the runner up

I think the mind is a useful tool to a certain extent... For example, I can get in my car and drive to the beach, but to go swimming I have to get out of my car and walk down to the water. I would also disagree with sleep being as close as we can get to 'no thoughts' Not that I am a meditation master by any means, but emptying your mind during meditation is much different than sleeping. Natural curiosity is great in so far as it can lead you towards the path, but I think that it can only take you so far. To tread upon the path, you have to let go of the curiosity in my humble opinion. Not sure I follow. Can you elaborate? Specifically how someone asking a question without expecting an answer is more profound than 2 hrs a day of nirvakalpa samadhi. I think you are comparing apples and oranges, but I gotta lean towards the guy who can do the 2 hrs/day nirvakalpa samadhi

Have you ever heard of the thud experiement? hqaptRYjhq4 It says you should beware the monks with a statue that is missing a hand

And even if the rabbit twitches and the teapot shatters on the floor, the tea remains tea (although in a form that is now much harder to drink).

Or maybe the test was for Hao himself, and cultivating the Tao was not in reaching the destination (when the cave was finished ), but in the journey (in the act of digging itself). Hao realized this, but his disciples did not.

I have a BA in philosophy . I thought philosophy would give me some answers, but all it did was create more questions. The reality is that I have learned more about who and what I am by sitting and meditating than any philosophical work I have ever read. The constant stream of thoughts just adds layers between us and our original nature, and there's a lot of wisdom in the old taoist notion of forgetting. Then again, I'm just a rabbit with a teapot on his head, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

This all sounds like a lot of intellectual masterbation. Just sit down and meditate

Neat avatar. Welcome!

reposting my comments from the other thread here: Well, I chewed through the first 200 pages while I was stuck for 8 hrs at LaGuardia (my flight got bumped twice ) coming back from Lin's meet. A lot of interesting details about the various sects, although it gets pretty confusing when you not only have sect X, but you then have Northern and Southern offshoots of sect X that differ greatly. I found the sections on ceremonial and divinational taoism slightly boring, but the sections on magical and alchemical taoism were terrific. It might have just been my state of mind at the time, or perhaps I just have more affinities with these paths. She sure demystifies some of the alchemical processes, and even takes a swipe at Charles Luk haha.... I am really looking forward to reading the next section on Meditation and discussing it with you all.

I will ask the obvious question here, but what are the advantages of cultivating in a cave? I am guessing the cave would have a very yin energy and is sort of symbollic of the womb. Other than that is one's energy inside a a cave heightened etc... Kosta wrote a bit about the metallic elements in mountains carrying an energy, almost like an energetic tuning fork or something. Any thoughts Lin or Dao Zhen?

I am printing this off. Thank you for sharirng this wisdom Dao Zhen!