Zhongyongdaoist

It is also August between a partial eclipse of the Moon on August Seventh and a total eclipse of the Sun on August 21st as was posted here a couple of months ago: There could be all kinds of problems judging by the news already. Things happening on the Dao Bums will probably seem pretty tame.

Mod notice We actually have had one report, and the person involved has been asked to edit their post. We prefer people to edit their own posts and so I have notified offending party to that effect. More action may follow, but I am the only one online now, under the circumstances that is about all I am willing to do. Please keep centered and consider how much of a fool you might be making yourself appear to be for the sake of a cheap shot at someone else. Zhongyongdaoist

Just to be clear, these are part of the fundamental rules of the Dao Bums: and are the reasons why there will not be a "Grand Inquisitor" to "pontificate" on real or fake practices on Dao Bums staff, as far as the owner and staff are concerned, you all have to make up your own minds. I have been on The Dao Bums long enough to see several groups of people try to monopolize the Dao Bums, so far none have succeeded, and I personally hope that neither they nor anyone else ever does. ZYD

You might try: exorcist_1699 I understand he lives in Hong Kong, so you might want to make his acquaintance anyway as part of your relocation plans, he may have a lot of good connections for you in China. He also has one of my favorite Dao Bums avatars. ZYD

Administrative Notice The OP has said he is tired of this thread, maybe because he is not getting the responses from other members that he wants to his complaint. I wouldn't close this for his sake, but personally I am tired of it also, and at least one member has suggested that this thread be locked and since the idea had already occurred to me anyway, I'm going to go ahead and do that very thing. It may or may not be opened up again depending on discussion among the staff. Zhongyongdaoist, Concierge

Obviously most people here are only able to make mediocre jokes about peaches, which certainly deserve canned laughter. Xiwangmu is one of the most important deities of Ritual Daoism (the term I prefer to "religious" Daoism) and there is a long history of turning to her, both by men and woman for help in cultivation. Here are some resources: The Wikipedia Article is actually fairly good For her treatment at a great source for Ritual Daoist information this is it I don't have much time right now to say much more, but from a traditional perspective your idea is a good one.

Sorry no, actually it doesn't. The Chinese is: 知其雄，守其雌，為天下谿。 and 其, qí, is a possessive meaning his / her / its / their 雄 xióng, male / grand / imposing / powerful / mighty / person or state having great power and influence 雌 cí, female (yes, just female, or also Taiwan, but that doesn't seem relevant) So as close to "literally" as possible means: knowing, or being aware of (知) his or her, maleness (male aspect), “guarding” (守) his or her femaleness (female aspect). . . Where “guarding” can also mean: to keep watch / to abide by the law / to observe. The possessive, 其, means that the male and female are qualities of a person that are “active”, yang, and “passive, receptive”, yin, and are within the individual and related to conduct, not with whom you do, or do not have sex, or with what sex you identify while doing so. There is a complex Chinese cosmological and social background to this, which would require to much time to elucidate. The meanings and Chinese characters come from https://www.mdbg.net The text from http://ctext.org, Dao De Jing Chapter 28 These are good resources for every Dao Bum who, like most of us, is not that fluent in Chinese.

Thank you for your kind words.

I reviewed The Tao of Craft here:

It's Six Yogas of Naropa. I first read this as a teenager in Garma C. C. Chang's translation, there are more modern translations available. This is largely a work on dream yoga, but has some consideration of consciousness transference when one is dying and using it to reanimate a corpse. in terms of Daoist technique's Professor Jerry Alan Johnson's books on Daoist magic have some interesting information. This is an interesting sounding project, but it is definitely advanced work, but the training that would have to be done would be worthwhile in itself. ZYD

I first read Crowley, the Dao De Jing and the Yijing as a teenager in the Sixties. In the meantime I have studied and practiced things that Crowley simply did not have access to. He is pretty much useless for Daoism, his strongest work on Eastern traditions is in the area of Hindu/Buddhist ideas, especially Theravadan Buddhism through his association with Alan Bennett. He introduced yoga type training to Western magic, but his sex magic teaching are not "tantric" in the sense of originating in real Tantric literature, but probably derive from the teachings of Paschal Beverly Randolph, by way of the Ordo Templi Orientis. Bearing in mind the vast development in literature and resources on Eastern traditions that has emerged even since I was a teenager, there is precious little reason to turn to him for guidance in anything other than his own adaptations of Western magic, and personally based on my own experience and study of decades, I don't recommend that either.

Thanks for setting this up Kar3n, I am as sure as I can be under the circumstances, that in the long run this will turn out well.

OK, First it definitely takes place in southern Illinois, around the three cities Carbondale, Anna and Vienna. To quote from the notes that I took looking back and forth from the two map paths: There may be ways I could get it more exact, but that is not bad.

You beat me to it Brian, but yes, just as an eyeball measure going back and forth between the two maps, unfortunately I can't view both at once it looks like around the southern border of Illinois, eastern Kentucky, northern Alabama. That is a full U.S. map, but I could zoom in and see more cities and basically get it down to within about 50 miles without too much trouble. More later.

The astrology program that I use, Solar Fire, has a map function that allows me to see all sorts of things, including eclipse paths, I am looking at it now and checking the user manual to see if it is possible to set it up to show two paths at once, but even if it can't a little work in a drawing or paint program can easily do the trick. I'll see what I can do.

I don't know about the one you are talking about, but the most concrete reference linking Confucius with Laozi is the Chapter from the Liji, The Book of Rites, the - Zengzi Wen (曾子問), or Questions of Zengzi, which are a series of questions which Confucius disciple Zengzi was supposed to have asked Confucius about the Rites, in it a Lao Dan is cited as an authority whom Confucius had consulted, section 38 deals with funerals and eclipses: 38 曾子問: 曾子問曰：「葬引至於堩，日有食之，則有變乎？且不乎？」 Zengzi Wen: Zeng-zi asked, 'At a burial, when the bier has been drawn to the path (leading to the place), if there happen an eclipse of the sun, is any change made or not?' 孔子曰：「昔者吾從老聃助葬於巷黨，及堩，日有食之，老聃曰：『丘！止柩，就道右，止哭以聽變。』既明反而後行。曰：『禮也。』反葬，而丘問之曰：『夫柩不可以反者也，日有食之，不知其已之遲數，則豈如行哉？』老聃曰：『諸侯朝天子，見日而行，逮日而舍奠；大夫使，見日而行，逮日而舍。夫柩不早出，不暮宿。見星而行者，唯罪人與奔父母之喪者乎！日有食之，安知其不見星也？且君子行禮，不以人之親痁患。』吾聞諸老聃云。」 Confucius said, 'Formerly, along with Lao Dan, I was assisting at a burial in the village of Xiang, and when we had got to the path, the sun was eclipsed. Lao Dan said to me, "Qiu, let the bier be stopped on the left of the road; and then let us wail and wait till the eclipse pass away. When it is light again, we will proceed." He said that this was the rule. When we had returned and completed the burial, I said to him, "In the progress of a bier there should be no returning. When there is an eclipse of the sun, we do not know whether it will pass away quickly or not, would it not have been better to go on?" Lao Dan said, "When the prince of a state is going to the court of the son of Heaven, he travels while he can see the sun. At sun-down he halts, and presents his offerings (to the spirit of the way). When a Great officer is on a mission, he travels while he can see the sun, and at sun-down he halts. Now a bier does not set forth in the early morning, nor does it rest anywhere at night; but those who travel by star-light are only criminals and those who are hastening to the funeral rites of a parent. When there is an eclipse of the sun, how do we know that we shall not see the stars? And moreover, a superior man, in his performance of rites, will not expose his relatives to the risk of distress or evil." This is what I heard from Lao Dan.' (From the Chinese Text Project) It is this Lao Dan who has traditionally taken to be the historical Laozi, but there is no proof that this is so.

My understanding is that eclipses are generally not viewed as positive in Chinese Astrology, just as they are viewed as potentially bad in Western Astrology. Professor Jerry Alan Johnson says in one of his books on Daoist Magic that while eclipses are used a lot for Chinese "black" magic, practitioners of Chinese white magic don't do magic during eclipse periods at all. I could find the reference if anyone is interested. I found this interesting because it mirrors the traditional Western magical attitude. While I have not looked at this eclipse in detail from the view of mundane astrology, I have been rather concerned about its possible effects on the U.S., among other things the eclipse conjuncts President Trump's ascendant degree and eclipses were associated with averse effects on government and heads of state. As I recall the break up of the Soviet Union happened under a difficult eclipse pattern that started six months before, so it wasn't as complete a surprise to me as it was to just about everyone else.

Just to clarify for the sake of Dao Bums members, my post was in regard of a report received from a long term member complaining about Starjumper's treatment of Earl Grey. This person reminded us that Starjumper had been banned twice before, which I remember anyway, and was concerned about a return to the type of behavior that let to those bans. I don't like to act like some kind of scolding authority figure and so I have my humorous shtick about how much we mods hate leaving our perpetual yacht party to do that sort of thing. I don't even like pointing fingers and naming names unless I absolutely have to do so. I also wanted bring up the fact that this person's position here was tenuous because of their past record, that made me even less willing to specifically name Starjumper. I thought that out of the handful of people who had participated in the discussion there would only be one person, Starjumper, who would identify themselves with the description given. Apparently I was wrong in that opinion, though Starjumper did contact me on his own because of it, we had a very productive discussion, and he decided to rectify the situation on his own. This is shown by these three posts: I did not intend any reference to the member who presently posts under the name voidisyinyang and regret that my elliptical mode of expression led to any sort of misunderstanding on their part.

Thank you both Gentlemen, I could have hardly wished for a better outcome. Now I hope I haven't missed dinner, the yacht chef gets really cranky if you miss a meal!

We poor mods are always upset when we must take leave from the endless enchantment that the staff yacht, anchored as it is in a lush cove on the Ilse of the Blessed, provides and turn our attention to the mundane matters of rapping recalcitrant "daoists" on the knuckles for conduct unbecoming a sage, but there is at least one person here, who having returned from two bans interspersed with innumerable suspensions in between, has not learned, that in an era of Global Warming treading on thin ice is not a good idea. I hope that I have sufficiently described this person so that they recognize themselves, and that we have no more need to look into their conduct in the future. I have written this humorously, but put it in "mod blue", to emphasize that it should not be taken lightly. If you should see yourself in the above, but have no clue as to why your conduct is not satisfactory, perhaps you should read, possibly for the first time, this little gem: TheDaoBums' Three Foundations: Eclectic, Egalitarian, Civil. and then graduate to other good beginner's book, maybe something written by Miss Manners. It could save your future here at the Dao Bums. Zhongyongdaist, Concierge, and Booh Bah Plenipotentiary

Moved as per the request of the Great Stone Face, oh sorry, that was Marblehead's request.

After a lot of thought I have decided that the basic criticism which I introduced in the above quoted post was too important to leave as it was, because the usual prejudice to dismiss Plato as a mere "philosopher" in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century sense of the word, and to dismiss reason in the sense in which Plato and his school would have used it, as mere counter productive "intellectualism", is very strong among mystically minded types. I know this very well, because I used to do it myself. To counter this I have decided to post links to two essays by Edward Butler which can be downloaded if you want, which show how the outline of a Metaphysics of the One, which I mention above, was worked out by later Platonists, in this case Plotinus and Proclus. The first one focuses mostly on the work of Proclus, making a comparison between Proclus' "henadology", which is the study of the One and its metaphysical and cosmogenic power, and its relation to traditional Indian thought: Bhakti and Henadology The second one focuses on Plotinus' use of Henadic principles to explicate the nature of the Pagan Gods, of whatever pantheon, as unique Ones: Plotinian Henadology Both of these discussions have aspects which help to anchor the idea of the actual existence of unique "individuality" and thus "personhood" at the highest levels, and thereby create a rationale for the existence of a preexistent Soul that can make free choices about its future "incarnation". Regrettably for the "uninitiated" they are in technical scholarly jargon, but there are some people here who can readily read and understand them as written, and for those who can't, even going through the essays they are likely to find some passages which are interesting and insightful which will make the effort worthwhile. If there is enough interest, I may post more on this, and other aspects of these essays and "henadology", here or elsewhere.

The discussion of the four principles is riddled with presuppositions that can be questioned. In Platonism for example the pre-existent soul chooses the life that it will live, which naturally includes the parents to which it will be born, just as it can be assumed, based on this model, that the parents choose the child which they would have. This is all described in the Tenth Book of Plato's Republic in what is usually called: The Myth of Er Now Plato's discussion of the myth of Er does not exist in a vacuum, but in a complete cosmological system based on a metaphysics of the One which Plato outlined in his dialog Parmenides. This whole system provides an alternative framework for thinking about these matters, as well as a system of spiritual practice based upon it, which was explicated by later authors within the system which was outlined in Plato's dialogs.

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I thought the Green Dragon Society, was ineffective martial arts wise, they would not have been if they were doing genuine spirit boxing, which their literature gave me ample reason to believe. They were either a very clever fraud, or a very dangerous group of people, based on their literature I thought that the later much more likely. The fact that good sound training defeated these people is something that is important to bear in mind, and your mention of Golden Bell also brings up another skill which the Taiji "master" in the video seemed to lack.

Yes, if the Taiji "master" in the video had been capable of using short power, he might have easily beaten this fellow, but either he couldn't, or, much less likely, he could, but was afraid of really harming this guy. The people who have genuinely high achievements in this type of thing, really don't care about the people who are attracted to it for martial skill, and not only does it attract the wrong type of people who believe in such things, it also attracts the debunkers who constantly make demands that you prove these things, which is also more trouble than it's worth. Ah, the Green Dragon Society, I remember them. I ordered a mail order catalog from them in the early seventies, and found them bizarre to say the least. They practiced spirit boxing in which the animal spirit who corresponds to the system is invited to take full possession of the student to give them more power and accelerate their progress. Needless to say, this is potentially a very dangerous practice, and not considered a positive one. Your Sifu was lucky to escape from this group, and I find your description of how woefully they fared in challenging members of Wayson Liao's school both interesting and worth bringing up. Thanks for the post.