sean

DaoWaDiddy, thanks for the hi rez version, that is perfect. el_tortugo, that is such a cool picture, I don't even need an explanation I just want to hang it on my wall and stare at it. Looks like you can slap down $100 and get a white on black version of it here. Rex, nice pics, there a good blurb on T5 on that first one:

I mostly just drink Pellegrino ... I don't know anything about it, I should probably pay more attention but I like the way it tastes. There was a tastier mineralwasser I drank in Germany but I forget the name of it and I haven't seen it in the US.

Also reminds of the "Squat Creep" in Body Flow, except Scott doesn't put his hands behind his head. Cool move.

Is that another picture of you Trunk?

I think maybe we are using the word aggression a little differently. I guess technically the word does have a bad connotation, so it's not really the right word. I will say though that I do see a difference between having aggressive energy and actually manifesting this aggression as physical violence. But perhaps better words are protectiveness, strength, power, decisiveness, direction, purpose, presence, stability. These are qualities that feminine energy, almost by definition, naturally seeks. IMO the ideal of Taoism is not to create a watered down grey soup where every individual is a little island of perfectly nice, sanitary internal balance. I see it more like that the world itself, our interactions with others, with nature, with animals, with the sky, the sun, the moon, etc. ... this is "external" alchemy (external in quotes because the universe is our body one part of which is our individual physical body), and in a sense it's an infinite game, or if you prefer an infinite dance. So at times, perhaps even for an entire lifetime, there are dancers in this play of human alchemy that are more like fire and other human forms that are more like water, and when they come together an arc of sexual alchemy occurs between them. It's not fire's purpose to become half water, or or water's purpose to become half fire, they each have their own natures. They need at least the principle of the other's energy for the alchemy of their destiny, but again, not to become the other or half and half, but to fully embody their own true nature (which is both beyond and also fully is their form). In lovemaking for example ... I'm not sure about you, but IME enjoyable lovemaking involves polarities of strongly embodied feminine and masculine principles, principles of water and fire, of reception and penetration, perhaps these energies occur as "roles" that each partner switches, back and forth, but IMO not in effort to dillute them into one substance. That is IMHO why these energies are called fire and water because obviously the two cannot truly "get along" and fully understand the other, the best we can do is enjoy the dance. Sean

But I think we would agree that if you are not really that nice of a guy, and actually have a natural degree of agression and at least some firm decisiveness, then it would be an effort again your nature, against the Tao in a sense, to pretend you are Sensitive New Age Guy (SNAGs is what they are being called even by women in spiritual communities) just to please a woman, right?

I recently move two political threads to Off Topic and I wrote: Turbo then wrote: I think it's an idea worth discussing, definitely. I don't have a strong opinion about it yet and am about to run out the door but I'd like to hear what other people think.. Sean

I think Emelgee is right. I think too much.

It took me awhile to get this and not be offended by it. I think women (or men with a strong feminine essence) want to hold and be held by someone who is going somewhere and is going to lovingly take them with, not someone who is so distracted by their presence that they stop their purpose to make the women the entire point of their existence. That is actually a burden for women, am I right? Hey neimad, I really feel you man. It's a rough game. But women mirror life. Women are no more "difficult" than the world is, which can be horribly painful and difficult but also very pleasant and loving and sweet. I'm not trying to hold women up on a pedestal, because I think there are probably some annoying trends in modern women (as if I have any way of making a real comparison to support this opinion ) but I also think that men have likely "let down" women in the last few generations of "sensitivity training". It's not that women want to be treated like shit, it's just that women with very strong feminine essences are just kind of wild, pulsating, whirling balls of Light that in some ways are energetically craving a powerful, "dark", masculine essence to watch over them (you can see the whole dynamics of strip-clubs right there), protect her and offer a sense of direction and structure. IMO, energetically, the ditzy, drunk slut and the macho, ass-slapping, musclebound jock are kind of a perfect fit. For guys that have a more balanced masculine/feminine essence, they will need a more balanced partner. If you are truly a feminine essenced heterosexual man then you need to understand that you are either going to attract masculine essenced women, who will try to impose direction on you and slap your ass (which is fine, although probably difficult via social conventions) ... or if you attract a feminine essenced partner, one of you will have to "act like a man" sometimes, at least to get things going in the bedroom, but acting against your essence is hard on your body when done long term, so can lead to, ie: her resentment of being forced to take on this role since she really just wants to relax with a masculine essenced partner. Great post freeform, I really enjoyed reading that. Ok, I am clearly a big fan of Deida, how about more? If a man is very masculine by nature, then he will be attracted to a very feminine woman, who will complement his energy. The more neutral or balanced he is, the more balanced he will prefer his woman. And, if a man is more feminine in nature, his energy will be complemented by the strong direction and purposiveness of a more masculine woman. By understanding their own needs, men can learn to accept the "whole package" of a woman. For instance, a more masculine man can expect that any woman who really turns him on and elivens him will also be relatively wild, undisciplined, "bonkers", chaotic, prone to changing her mind and "lying". Still, from an energetic perspective, this kind of woman will be much more healing and inspiring to him than a more balanced or neutral woman who is steady, reasonable, "trustworthy", and able to say what she means in a way he can understand. ... Some women are hotter, some are cooler. In general, blonde, light-skinned, Japanese, and Chinese women are cooler. Dark skinned, brunette, red-headed, Korean, and Polynesian women are hotter. Even though a man might choose to remain in a committed intimacy with one woman, his needs for different temperatures of feminine energy may change over time. A hot woman who aroused his passion several years ago may irritate him now. A cooler woman who soothed his heart several years ago may seem tiresome to him now. By understanding how different temperatures of feminine energy may affect him, a man could make more skillful life choices without confusion. Sean

More Deida quotes: "Keeping your word" is a masculine trait, in men or women. A person with a feminine essence may not keep her word, yet it is not exactly "lying". In the femine reality, words and facts take a second place to emotions and the shifting moods of relationship. When she says, "I hate you", or "I'll never move to Texas", or "I don't want to go to the movies", it is often more a reflection of a transient feeling wave than a well considered stance with respect to events and experience. On the other hand, the masculine means what he says. A man's word is his honor. The femine says what it feels. A woman's word is her true expression in the moment. ... A man gets resentful and frustrated with his woman when he is too afraid, weak, or unskilled to penetrate her moods and test into love. He wishes she were easier to deal with. But it is not entirely her fault that she is bitchy and complaining. It is also a reflection of her lack of being penetrated by love. When a man resigns, and simply tolerates his woman's self-destructive moods, it is a sign of weakness. His attitude has become one of wanting to escape women and the world, rather than wanting to serve women and the world into love. A man shouldn't tolerate bitchy and complaining moodiness in his woman, but he should serve her and love her with every ounce of his skill and perserverance. Then, if she cannot or will not open in love, he might decide to end his relationship with her, harboring no anger or resentment, because he knows he has done everything he could. ... A woman sometimes seems to want to be the most important thing in her man's life. However, if she is the most important thing, then she feels her man has made her the number one priority and is not fully dedicated or directed to divine growth and service. She will feel her man's dependence on her for his happiness, and this will make her feel smothered by his neediness and clinging. A woman really wants her man to be totally dedicated to his highest purpose -- and also to love her fully. Although she would never admit it, she wants to feel that her man would be willing to sacrifice their relationship for the sake of his highest purpose. Sean

Hey man, I think this is an awesome post it just took a bit for me to digest it. I wish the high resolution color image of that poster worked on the link there. Do you have a higher resolution version? I'm curious where T5 (GV11) is on that diagram? Also, where are you reading about this as being the wing point and why is called the wing point? Thanks, Sean

I keep planning on buying it but I have a little stack of books I want to work through first. I'd also like to hear the scoop on this. Plato, do we need this book? What's the target audience?

The difficulty for me in deciding what goes where is that ultimately Taoist Discussion is anything at all that Taoists talk about. At the same time I'd like to figure out some kind of "in principle" distinction that I can make, so, especially as this forum gets more and more active, we are not faced with a situation where the first 15 topics in Taoist Discussion are on Brittney Spears, PHP Programming, Shoe Polish, etc. I'm not sure another forum would really help, I think it might just postpone the issue and even make it more complex. For example, a Taoist Cultivation/Philosophy and a Taoist Fringe distinction ... in a single topic these can easily blend together and are not even obviously separate on first post. This topic is actually kind of a Taoist Discussion itself, a kind of soul searching ... The Tao is not really about being unique or making hard distinctions. But on some level what distinguishes a Tao Bums discussion from an ordinary discussion, at least on some gross level? Like, I am a Tao Bum, so in a sense everything I talk about is a Tao Bum discussion because that is the way my mind words full time, but when I am yelling at Bank of America on the phone for fucking up my account again, that's not really that exciting or relevant to a Tao Bums community discussion, you know? But I hesitate to draw the line with specific content, because I imagine that I probably could make even this more relevant somehow, perhaps if I talked about anger, and how it rises as a column of heat and tension in my body, and if there are any practices specifically designed to open, cool and ground this energy. What are the unique qualities of a Taoist Discussion post? (brainstorm) Oriented toward the spirit of our community (vague) Some attempt is present to align with both Heaven and Earth? In other words, something that avoids a flatland discussion. Per Wilber: So, perhaps a topic is more and more Taoist Discussion, the more it connects with a fuller spectrum of reality, particularly the socially undervalued interior quadrant. I mean, that's why most of us are here, right? And a post is more and more Off Topic the more it is overly specific and mundane with no attempt to connect the topic to a sense of a deeper reality than what is on the surface. How to properly make these judgement calls is a tough call. Some content just automatically seems to fit without any struggle. Like if you mention qigong, you're probably on topic. But what about RMAX qigong? Or what about martial arts in general? Many styles just naturally integrate Heaven and Earth, but what about pure fighting styles, "flatland" styles that leave the Heaven and Earth to you .... like is a boxing discussion on topic? Interested in some feedback here, I know it's a bore in many ways, but if you think about it in terms of trying to clarify what makes something more or less aligned with Tao that is pretty interesting. Sean

What do you think of this quote: Sometimes a woman will make a request of her man in plain English, not to get him to do something, but to see if he is so weak that he will do it. In other words, she is testing his capacity to do what is right, not what she is asking for. In such cases, if the man does what his woman asks, she will be disappointed and angry. The man will have no idea why she is angry or what could possibly please her. He must remember that her trust is engendered not by him fulfilling her requests, but by him magnifying love, consciousness, and success in their lives, in spite of her requests. --- David Deida Sean

Glad you are feeling better neimad. That is an interesting exercise you mentioned. In AYP you probably know one of the central practices is spinal breathing, up and down the spine, to balance these two vertical, up and down energies and open the spinal channel. In Yogani's latest book he even touches on the different temperature of these currents which I thought was interesting: Via Spinal Pranayama Maybe something to look into. You can also spiral these energies; Trunk touches on this on his site here and occultists (who are evil and scary and doing something completely different than the pure Taoists and Yogis ) have similar practices, ie: the middle pillar ritual, circulation of the body of light, etc. Re: Karma, yeah, karma isn't about good or bad to me either, IMO it's just a huge impersonal force of cause and effects of movement in the universe that is way bigger than human morality ... but our actions have an effect and trauma forms heavy samskaras and vasanas on our souls that we are then alchemically bound up with until we resolve. This view also makes it a little easier to have compassion on ie: persecutors, because you are essentially seeing someone traumatizing their own soul though they may not realize it in this life. Sean

Interesting idea turbo, let's discuss this here. Sean

Yin Yoga, by Paul Grilley Yin Yoga is one of those rare books you come across every so often that is just the right amount of information. Neither dumbed down, nor overflowing with unnecessary details. this book is obviously years of the authors experience and practice, distilled into an elegant, highly digestable presentation. In practice, Yin Yoga is simply based on holding Yoga asanas for 3-5+ minutes each. I've been dabbling with hatha Yoga for over 10 years and I've held poses for this long plenty of times. But the idea of structuring an entire practice out of long holds on each asana is so brilliant, and so obvious I could have slapped myself in the forehead after reading it. I frequently do a set of asanas before meditating. And this is exactly how it felt. Asanas and then meditation. Yin Yoga is the opportunity to unite this division through stillness. Intellectually I've known that seated meditation is just another asana. Yin Yoga drove the point home in my body-mind. Now I can spontaneously move from asana to asana, bringing my awareness deeper into stillness before my final seated meditation. I might move from a 4 minute "Plow", to a 5 minute "Embrace the Tree", to a 2 minute handstand, to a 5 minute forward bend to finish with 20 minutes in siddhasana, each pose invigorating my chi flow and bringing me deeper and deeper into emptiness. The book also contains some theory that highlights just how complementary the best of Taoist alchemy and esoteric Yoga can be. Highly highly recommended. IMO, this kind of Yoga does open your chi channels. Thanks irkk for getting me into this and explaining so much about it. Sean This topic and this topic here also discuss Yin Yoga.

Just realized I never replied to your question here. I don't know enough yet about either Grilley or Zink to really compare, but so far it seems like Grilley has a much stronger emphasis in his book (and I'm assuming DVD) on holding the poses longer. Zink mentions that to make progress you need to hold the poses, but so far in the DVD's I've watched, he doesn't hold them with you for very long at all. He does touch on the 5 elements a bit. On the Beginner DVD there is a Yoga sequence that he teaches that moves through each of the elements, and the poses each have a kind of archetypal feeling, direction, etc. that relates them to the element. Nothing deeper though on visualizing elemental interactions subtle alchemy or anything like from what I've seen so far. He told me there is a lot more covered at seminars though. On the Beginner DVD he has these really really cool Chinese Immortals paintings behind him ... I think I'm going to write him and ask him where he picked those up. Sean

OMG, this is starting to get disturbing.

What was the practice? Maybe you hit a strange pocket of old baggage, like stored trauma. Internet diagnosis disclaimer in place, it sounds like you are processing something you stumbled into ... some people might relate it to something like kundalini symptoms, which is just another way of saying the same thing IMO. Have you done a lot of hallucinogens in the past? That's another decent possibility, I bump into old trips sometimes. And in general I tap into all kinds of strange reservoirs that effect my states for days. Like Trunk says, this is why mystics tend to be reclusive. We are willingly seeking out karma to alchemically transform and release it, instead of waiting for life to hand us trouble, we look for it first ... I'd bet we are not always the most emotionally stable bunch for this reason ... hence the added importance of good stabilizing, grounding practices. The last few weeks I've been a bit wacky myself and have been ramping up the standing chi kung to help. Anyway, hugs man ... and I know you are man enough to cry if you need to. We're here for you. Sean

Weleda products are fantastic. They make the only face moisture cream I will use. I'll check out this deodorant too, thanks for the link. LOL! They say North Carolina is East coast, but I call it the South.

Yes, I moved them both to Off Topic. It's a tough call, I know it's subjective and I hear what you are saying Leo about country as context for practice ... it's one of the reasons I thought of just leaving them. I think the distinction I'm using here is that politics is cool in Taoist Discussion if we really consciously work to tie it in with cultivation, with our practice, with our bodies, minds, souls ... and not just speculative political theory. Does that make sense? It's wierd because I know technicall everything is really a Taoist discussion, but the line has to be drawn somewhere right? And especially for newcomers to the board, it's probably nicer for them to be presented with a Taoist Discussion that, like Trunk said, is clean and more directly related to cultivation practice. Sean

*Hugs* Neimad (no patting this time). Yeah, that'd be cool to hang out. Not sure when I'm going yet, I have an open pass valid for two years ... I got the pass for doing some design work for RMAX. Sean

I mean, it's not my dream job, but I think I would be happy doing it. Anything that puts me around the intense energies of birth and death keeps my interest.

Cam, architecture involves a little too much math for me I think, but I've thought about it. Wright was the man, I like his work. I think those were the ones I posted. I can't see anything else like that in my report. This was my score for the workplace fit profile section: Artistic (Creators) - 96 Investigative (Thinkers) - 94 Social (Helpers) - 91 Realistic (Doers) - 70 Attentive (Servers) - 66 Enterprising (Persuaders) - 4 Conventional (Organizers) - 2 I can see Journalism being down because I think it's not helpful enough ... you have to stay too objective, whereas I feel like your calling is more hands on ... I'm sure it will involve writing, but not just to report on what is happening. PS, there is a free Myers-Briggs test here, under Jung Tests. Yoda, I think I would probably be oddly happy in funeral services. Sean