sean

Ah, I've actually expressed identical thoughts before but it's been awhile I've thought on those lines. A very fruitful perspective. Everything people do routinely, wether it's conscious or unconscious, is refining a certain "skillset". Even strange things like repressing anger, generating enough anxious energy about being late for work that we get out of bed, etc., etc.. is all energy work on some level. Give someone an actual thought-out energy practice and they may appear to have natural talents/weaknesses in certain contexts, but really it's just the effects of what they've been practicing their whole lives every day. One of my roles in the company I work for is actually training in website design applications. I've been using computers since I was a a little kid and so it's a similar sort of thing. I bump up against pieces missing in people's understanding that I so completely take for granted that it's a real struggle to figure out how to break it down and teach it.

Do you think we should get .com, .org., or .net? I remember what you wrote about .com's getting higher ranking on Google, but it just seems like we are more an .org ... or maybe a .net if we eventually turn this into a portal or something. Then again, we could just buy all three (over time) and point them to the same place.

Hey, have you ever checked out: http://www.fromthewilderness.com

This is the approach I've been using and I just sort of stumbled upon it. Sometimes throughout my day I'll realize that my center and "me-ness" is all up in my head, behind the eyes as you say. And you described exactly what I do... it feels like almost physically holding on to and just moving the center quite confidently (as if you are certain you can do it) down to the abdomen. It's interesting how certain changes occur most effectively when done quickly and with confidence. IMO it's a lot of what makes up the NLP stance. Doesn't always work, and it probably doesn't refine your skills the way meditating for years on slow and precise movements does, but 's a fun way to at least get the feel for what you are going for. Sean.

No problem Ron. I'm just really glad to help out in any way I can this Taoist community that I've learned so much from over the last year. Let's just keep being chaotic for the time being, letting ideas flow semi-disorganized and by the time I get back I think things will have settled and we can get to business. [edit] PS: I think I fixed the avatar folder. After I did the "threaded" mod I think it got the wrong permissions and it may not have been allowing avatar uploads.

Cool ideas Pietro. I slimmed down the categories significantly for now. But since it looks like this forum software has at least the core features we need I am interested in learning the inner workings of it in the following months and learning how to make mods and whatnot. If there are any other programmers amongst us, maybe we can work on figuring out how to make this tagging system. I agree with you that it's very limiting to have fixed categories for discussions like this, but having one big forum for all discussions could eventually turn into an unmanageable "junk drawer" in a sense. I really like how gmail handles this and would like to potentially emulate this on the forums. It's pretty much exactly what you've been describing this whole time. Instead of folders like in my most email software, you apply "labels" to your email. You can create as many labels as you want an apply as many labels as you want to any piece of email. Then you have your main "All Mail" inbox where all your mail shows up, and you also have your label boxes in which each email shows up in as many labels boxes as you've tagged it with. So for example, you could tag an email as "friend", "business", and "art" and it will show up in all those label boxes. If you, or anyone else wants to check it out, let me know. I have 5 gmail invites left. Sean.

Ok, I slimmed down the number of subforums significantly. Does everyone like that better?

Ron, sounds like a great idea. Let's shoot for the end of this month with that ritual. Matthew, Once I get back from my trip, I'm going to try to install a chat feature directly into the forum. It should be pretty cool. Sean.

Scientific studies on Qi, non-local healing and also on intentional "mind-matter" interactions in general. Here are some links you may find interesting: The Efficacy of "Distant Healing" A Systematic Review of Randomized Trials There are links to many related articles on this same page at the bottom. Scientific Evidence for the Efficacy of Prayer Dr. Peter Fenwick A Randomized, Controlled Trial of the Effects of Remote, Intercessory Prayer on Outcomes in Patients Admitted to the Coronary Care Unit Many more related articles on the same page at the bottom. Distant Healing Daniel J. Benor, MD Using western scientific methods to prove the efficacy of traditional healing methods A proposal for a large-scale human clinical trial Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis of Bioenergy Therapies by James L., Ph.D. Oschman Book Review - Scientific Qigong Exploration The Wonders and Mysteries of Qi The International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research International Consciousness Research Laboratories

I always wondered about Levenson's spiritual affinities as it's completely unmentioned on the tapes. Makes perfect sense he was into Ramana though. And the polarities work you mentioned is great. Take any polarity and just go back and forth on it. Could I allow myself to be as happy as I am right now? Could I allow myself to be as sad as I am right now? ... Other ones I like are comfortable/uncomfortable, restricted/free, at peace/ conflicted ... even dichotomies that I think are silly on an intellectual level can produce interesting releases, ie: evil/good Glad you like the method Yoda.

If you were playing on the forum within the past three hours, you'll notice it suddenly looks a lot different. This is a different piece of software. It has some extra features. It's also completely open source and has a large community behind it. You'll have to re-register. It just takes a minute. (Ignore the disclaimer. I'll have to change that). You can also post as a guest. You can still find the old forum here if you want to play with it: www.seanomlor.com/tao2 Sean. [edit] MathewQi, you mentioned using YahooGroups for the chat function. Not a bad idea. I like YahooGroups. We could also integrate a chat right into this phpBB forum though.. .check it out: http://pjirc4phpbb.earlsoft.co.uk/

That is a nice breakdown. What do you think of this refinement of your idea? general - general spiritual talk stillness - vipassana, standing, emptiness movement - chi kung, tai chi, body-flow, yoga, physical training, etc. articles - longer, intelligently composed complete thoughts (probably where your "realizations" would go) health - medicine, nutrition, diet, tcm, etc sex - sexual practices, jing gong, tantra, etc. training logs - daily practice journals and milestones off-topic - completely unrelated rants and raves Sean.

Hmmm... maybe we should just wait until the site is fully developed. Do you know the email addresses of most of the core contributing members of the HT board? We could just privately invite them over here, and continue to decide on software, domain name, admins, moderators, categories, etc.etc. Then I will buy the domain (if anyone wants to chip in that's great too) and will design the look/theme with any else who wants to help. Then once the site is polished and live on thw new domain and we are mostly happy with it we can announce it on HT, but announce it in a completely friendly non-competitive way (which is what I hope it to be) as just another discussion forum for taoist practices. And sheepy/max and whoever else can do the more aggressive marketing/meta tags/google indexing, etc. to get a larger active user base. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not sure the announcement of this forum should be in the context of a "goodbye healing tao board" because both can coexist peacefully... know what I mean? Sean. Sean.

Well I installed a test of the threaded mod. It will be a real headache to install it into this theme though, so I just created another phpBB install and modded the default theme for now. It's up, for testing purposes, here: http://www.seanomlor.com/taothread/ I think it's a really nice best-of-both worlds solution because it let's you switch between threaded and flat views. And I think now this phpBB software meets most of the suggested software criteria, no? Sean.

Testing the voting poll

Personally, I've always been partial to this type of forum software, maybe just because it's what I'm used to. I'm not completely sold on the tree structure especially if it's not collapsable.. If we decide on tree structure let's please make sure it's expandable/collapsable. So you feel that the main "cons" to this type of forum format is that you can't quickly see the subject title of the replies, and that it makes it hard to quickly respond to/ignore. Is this a correct summary? I just did some brief searching, and it looks like phpBB can be modded to have a tree view, check it out: http://www.jayjaymedia.com/mobythreads/for...orums/index.php and you can switch back to flat view. It's not collapsable but maybe worth a look? Sean.

crap it only let's you vote for one.

just throwing in to the mix here: taoistalchemy.net taoistalchemy.org taoalchemy.com taoalchemy.net taoalchemy.org taoyoga.net taoyoga.org I like taobums Also, Pietro, I agree ... it should be more like a portal with a wiki and blogs, etc.

Sheepish, I think Pietro suggested that we keep the forum open to guests being able to post. I think we should eventually take all of these decisions and make polls where everyone can vote. Heh, but I guess we'd have to turn off guest can post at least for the duration of the voting. Pietro, are you still having problems posting new Topics? Max and everyone ... please share any alternative software ideas. I'm willing to host multiple pieces of software on my site for testing purposes.

Ahh... like a link/banner exchange type thing? Yeah, let's definitely do that! Like Pietro says, once we have a dedicated domain, etc ... :bounce:

Thanks Ron. So in a sense we create the Cauldron and the Tan Tien with our focus and intent? So instead of walking around with my shoulders up and my head forward like that guy on my home page my center of gravity will be down in my belly. Here's an interesting blurb from: http://wongkk.com/answers/ans00a/feb00-3.html Question 9 I have learnt qigong for a number of years and through personal experience I have experienced the Tan Tien as 3 or 4 fingers' width below the navel and three fingers' width inside the abdomen. However, recently a number of books have stipulated that the Tan Tien is 3 or 4 fingers' width below the navel but located on the central channel or axis of the body. What is your opinion on this. Finally, I just want to tell you that I have read all your books and have found them to be most helpful. Chee Gay, Malaysia Answer 9 "Dan tian" (tan tien) literally means "elixir field". "Elixir" refers to vital energy that has consolidated into a pearl. Hence, dan tian refers to a spot in a person's body where his vital energy has accumulated into a field. As a chi kung practitioner can accumulates his energy in a field at various spots in his body, there are various energy fields or dan tian. Theoretically there are countless energy fields as there are countless spots where a practitioner may choose to accumulate his energy, but in practice these energy fields are located in certain specific spots as these spots represent the ideal positions where energy should be accumulated. The most ideal position for storing energy is at the qi-hai vital point or the guan-yuan vital point, which are respectively two "inches" or three "inches' below the naval, and about two "inches" beneath the skin surface at the abdomen. The "inch" here is neither the Chinese inch nor the British inch, but a biological inch, which is the distance between the first and the second joints of the right index finger of the person in question. Qi-hai means "sea of energy", and guan-yuan means "gate of origin". They are so named because when a person relaxes totally, his energy, if it is flowing well, will naturally accumulate at qi-hai; it was from guan-yuan that his original energy first blossomed into his life-long growth. Every person obtained his (or her) original energy from his father and mother. Realizing this fact, anyone with some human sense will be kind to his parents. Only those who do not even have cow-sense will consider his conceptual moment, which was both beautiful and sacred and which produced his original energy, as an unfortunate accident. The qi-hai dan tian or the guan-yuan dan tian is called the abdominal dan tian, to be distinguished from other dan tian, but because it is the most important, when the term "dan tian" is mentioned without any qualifying prefix, it usually refers to the abdominal dan tian. You are right in saying that the dan tian is about 3 or 4 fingers' width below the naval and beneath the skin, as 2 or 3 biological inches is about 3 or 4 fingers' width. Other dan tian include the top dan tian at bai-hui and tian-mu, the middle dan tian at tan zhong, the low dan tian at hui-yin, the back dan tian at ming-men and ling=tai, the hand dan tian at lao-gong and the foot dan tian at yong-chuan. Apart from the hand and the foot dan tian, the other dan tian are located along the ren mai and the du mai, or the conceptual meridian and the governing meridain. Instead of (or after) circulating energy flow along the ren mai and the du mai, the break-through of which is called attaining the Small Universe (or micro-cosmic flow), many Taoist cultivators accumulate their energy in fields along the axis of the body, i.e. the perpendicular from the base of the spine at hui-yin to the top of the head at bai-hui. Between these two bottom and top energy fields are two lower and middle energy fields, known respectively as huang-ting (yellow palace) and chong ting (central palace). The huang-ting energy field is behind the guan-yuan energy field (the one you mentioned in your question), and the chong-ting energy field is behind the tan- zhong energy field.

I really need to install a chat room into this forum. How obnoxious is this as a category breakdown: general ___general discussion - random talk ___ranting and raving - extremely off-topic, potentially offensive material tao yoga and alchemy ___ general - tao related, but not easily categorized ___philosophy - intellectual discussion, ie: philosophical taoism, buddhism, etc. ___qi gong and meditation - energy, breath, stillness, and emptiness practices ___medicine - diet, nutrition, tcm, etc. ___physical practice - wushu, body-flow, strength training, yoga, etc. ___jing gong - sexual practice ___geomancy, divination and astrology - feng shui, i ching, macrocosm, etc. ___art - music, dance, painting, poetry ___magick - talismans, ritual, etc. ___other paths - buddhism, sufism, christianity, hinduism, judaism, islam, kabbalah, etc ...

I like those suggestions a lot. Do you think "other paths" should get it's own section... for example, posts more specific to buddhism, or christianity, etc...

Yeah, I wonder what set him off. Was it actually a personal issue or just a technical problem do you think? Anyways, I'm glad you like the look. And yeah, let's think up a cool domain name and eventually we can boil it down to a few and then vote on one and I'll buy it. 8)

Thanks for the compliment Plato! Exactly what I was thinking with the "rants and raves" category. hmmm... would you rather see the forum simple with maybe three categories like general discussion, taoist alchemy, and off-topic rants and raves.... or would you rather see more detailed categories?