Apech

I see your point but I must dash.

I watched the second half again and liked it better this time. All I can say is - that theme tune is so amazing it gives me goosebumps even now after having heard it a thousand times. I'll miss this show.

This channel is good at summing things up:

I agree - I think there is a lot of depth in these stanzas and we have only scratched the surface.

What's a pantser????

Jon's parents were secretly married he wasn't a bastard.

I didn't mind the first half - up to the Jon/Dany thing. But I found the trial scene ridiculous and also think that the Unsullied/Dothraki would have killed Jon not just held him in prison. I predicted Sansa as Queen of 7 kingdoms but I guess just the North will do - and Bran as king? Why? I don't get that at all.

Hi, The theme of this seems to be about a king inspiring through music (related to the rumbling of thunder) and assembling his forces. feudal lords would be like generals or officers and the multitude the troops. It could be related to an intent or purpose (the king) supported by conceptual forms (officers) and through them the various things you would have to do to put it into practice (the troops). Thunder as a trigram is usually thought of as a shock, or something that stirs up a new order - a change (usually radical). So to get action one has to first inspire people by the idea of it, publicise it, enthuse others and lead them into action. I don't know what your original question was - and it doesn't really matter - but the moving line suggests to me that 'singing out delight - misfortune' means that as this converts to thunder/thunder - sometimes all the energy goes into the music, and the dancers (marshalled forces) get left behind, so although there is a lot of noise nothing really changes.

That last episode was so weak, made me feel almost as if I had wasted a lot of time watching the rest.

What does 'never found non-dual' mean?

When you cultivate and purify your own energy then you tend to produce an adverse reaction to people with disharmonious or conflicting energy. Its natural. However you need to guard against hate or disgust. By all means avoid some people - although eventually when you have made real progress this will be less necessary - but lack of patience and understanding is your own weakness in the face of the world's 'spin'. In fact it would be better to see developing patience and understanding as part of your cultivation goals. I don't mean you should beat yourself up for feeling like this, that won't help. Take some time to look at your own inner harmony and particularly your heart/mind, see challenging situations as a test of how balanced you have become. If you can't face it for now just walk away and do more practice. Hate and anger are destructive forces which damage your own organism. Labelling someone as an idiot or loser is to try to fix energy when it is a negative phase. So concentrate on developing your self and not correcting them. Eventually it will stop bothering you.

I think you guys were involved in that

Welcome Seito - looking forward to hear about your experiences.

I'm still holding to the both/and position - a ruler/sage has to know themselves in order to know other people. For instance a subjugated person does not have a full, replete, naturally born and complete heart/mind. The people are not free from emotions. So I conclude that the Neiye is talking about genuine benefit to all from following a natural way and so on.

valar morghulis

Which hexagram and line?

Thanks. i still have the problem of being able to relate to this section on the basis of the natural condition of the heart/mind - full, overflowing, naturally born and complete. This seems like a description of the 'natural state' of being unclouded by emotions. But in terms of a moral standard for the common folk I don't get it. Is this feed the stomach and starve the head (ish)???

I've been trying to fit that with the rest of the verse but it doesn't really make sense to me. can you explain why every other translator takes it the other way? Also presumably there are Chinese commentaries which give the right context - or are there none.

I assumed you'd vote for the World Socialist Movement.

Choices, choices

Thanks read that now. Luckily we are more interested in praxis than theory and personally I go with the shamanic roots of what eventually became the school/religion of Daoism. In which case there is no proto version as such - just various expressions emerging over the years depending on the cultural setting.

I'm reading Dawei's link. I think some would see it like that but I know from on here that others see it differently - and I'm a bit suspicious about the idea of a neat historical progression (but that's just me ).

I think we might have to go further through the text to answer that one. I would be surprised though if were not influenced by the Yijing since it is the classic of all classics for Chinese literature. Calling something proto-Daoist because it doesn't align seems a little perverse to me. I would suggest that the definition of Daoism is, or should be, much broader than whatever fits with a certain school. Its also fair to mention that many Chinese philosophies use the word dao in their own ways.

Maybe we are going down something of a rabbit hole but anyway I'll press on regardless. 'Cultivate' in English of course would be something to do with gardening. And meditation means to think about something - but is in such widespread use for all kinds of yogic practices and so on that inevitably we would still use it. Perhaps neither is quite the right word for what we are talking about but we use them anyway. I 'meditated' for under a year before I started to feel qi - later after some martial arts training, taiji and qigong when I got some to slightly higher level I realised that qi feelings in the body and ordinary feelings in the body were closely related - and that in the broadest terms it's all qi. There is a difference of course - before and after. I would argue also that stilling your heart and addressing emotions is the most direct and powerful 'technique' (gong?). Who was the target audience for some of these early texts? The ruling elite, specially the king himself. This is true for anything coming out of the late Bronze Age/Early iron age - usually these exclusive texts were later 'democratised' and made available for what nowadays would be called the upper/middle classes. This is because all the skills and so on applied to ruling a kingdom can be applied to yourself - that you become master of your domain as Seinfeld put it e.g. Horus is both the god of kingship and awareness the mandalas of medieval India reflect the king (central deity), his court (the attendant deities), his kingdom (the chakra). in Christian mysticism Christ is King in Daoism Laotzu gives advice to the sage/king and so on.

I think Yin/yang is older than this text - the Yijing dated to around 1046 BC.