Apech

Knock and door shall be opened.

Possibly true but the question was about Buddhism and Taoism and not about what the average Buddhist or Taoist does. After all you don't judge Christian mysticism on the basis of what is taught in Sunday School.

sigh

Ok I'll try to structure my reply differently. 1 ) Karma The origin of the term is in the teachings of the Vedas and actually refers to ritual actions in association with the Vedic rituals such as the Agni Fire Sacrifice where the Brahmin priest (usually) performs the rite in order to achieve a result - such as victory in war or a good harvest etc. So we have the main concept of action with a desired result. The Brahmin priest had to be ritually pure in order for this rite to work. In the Upanishads this idea was further developed into saying one's acts need to be supported with a kind social ethic - correct behaviour to be effective. the Buddha took this already familiar concept (for those he was teaching) and turned it around to say not only all your acts have results but also your intent also has results. In doing so he ethicalized the idea of karma. He said, to paraphrase that everything you do, say and think (intend) has karmic results. the reason this is important is because it gives you cause for mindfulness in all aspects of your life. As the defined Buddhist goal is to be happy and free of suffering - he recommended that you cultivate your conduct by avoiding those things which run counter to those goals. For this reason he developed precepts like not killing, stealing, lying and so on as a rule of thumb to guide behaviour - this is of the nature of skilful means in teaching and not absolute truth. Nowhere in Buddhism does it talk about Good versus Evil dualism as you asserted in your original post. 2 ) ... yes physical immortality is part of Internal Alchemy 3 ) I don't know the work of the occultist to which you refer.

Forgive me but you are jumping from system to system without actually understanding any of them.

Ha! Told what they would say ... those ur-texters.

Yes. Now you have to decide whether those Daoists were corrupted by Buddhism or if actually they realised that the idea was compatible with Daoism as they understood it.

No I'm referring to the husband of Queen Victoria, who believed philosophically in world peace through trade - in fact he promoted the Great Exhibition of 1851 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Exhibition) for this very reason. He was quite an enlightened thinker and German to boot. After he died things went downhill and the vision was replaced by the usual Imperial power, racial superiority crap that we all remember. But before that the bulk of the British Empire was just a trading company.

You sound like Prince Albert

Not a big fan of Thatcher to be honest but also I don't make simplistic analyses of complex situations. I prefer a style of politics which sees as it's aim the benefit of the population and not the select few. Sometimes that's left and sometimes right I suppose.

First half of this is quite good on why the US will never end up like Greece:

I didn't mind the 70's it was the 80's I didn't like.

I am 18 years old of course.

The man is a god ... it's a bit long but the first half hour is his address. But the whole thing shows something I haven't seen for a long time - real people discussing real issues and being listened to ...

We seem to have stumbled into ur-textism.

But I have three Monopoly 'Get Out of Jail Free' cards and a certificate of spiritual purity from Global Merit Inc. and since I was born in a Dragon year I should be exempt the eleventy-one. Surely?

Yes it's kind of odd to have a spiritual bureaucracy, especially as I forgot to submit my Immortality Application Form dd7/153647/xv this year and will have to pay a karmic penalty,

I've come in a bit late to this thread - but never mind. This whole ego thing is to my mind a bit of a can of worms. For a start the idea of the empirical ego as a problem to us comes from Western Analytical Psychiatry (thank you Mr. Freud). Somehow we are supposed to be in a tussle with our id and superego and God knows what else. So posit a part of our mind which like a nervous party host tries to juggle the situation so we all get on. Very Woody Allen. In Indian philosophy there are various terms - ahamkara (self creator?) , manas and of course Atman. One thing the Atman definitely isn't is the empirical ego - it's more like an eternal soul or essence of you. These are all translated (badly) into English as ego, some are closer than others but none is an exact fit. So we are handed down - often by people who should know better - instructions like 'you have to get rid of or remove your ego' or to make it sound more Zen 'your ego-mind'. The result? Thousands of Westerners scurrying around trying to be less themselves. Compare this with the Thai, Tibetan, Indian masters who seem to be more themselves - or at least more comfortable being who they are. So like many terms - e.g. 'mind', consciousness', 'spirit' - it's all lost in translation. Of course it's a good idea to stop clinging on to your needs and appetites. Its a good idea to be a better person, kinder, more open, more compassionate. But to be any use to anyone you have to be somebody. Just a few thoughts.

Gracias.

Yes rebirth is more difficult I agree - and also interestingly an intuitive thought about existence held by many even though their main world view may not encompass it. While I think it's true that you will struggle to find any reference to rebirth in the TTC or Zhuangzi ... of course there are those who would argue (like are very own TM) that this is not the original pure Daoism anyway and that is to be found with the I Ching sages of Fu Xi etc. And even more broadly if you zoom forward to later Daoism you have the Hun and Po souls and so on which imply that death is not the final destruction and that there is some kind of continuance - if there is continuance within the Dao then presumably it has to go somewhere or become something ... is this a kind of rebirth?

Do you (question related to activity addressed directly to another person) , Karl (or the person posting here under the screenname Karl) do any regular (i.e. routinely repeated) practice (i.e. some kind of meditation or cultivation process). ?

Accept Jesus into your heart and you will be born again.

Obviously as 'karma' is a Sanskrit term it's origin is in the Vedas. That is it is integral to Indian philosophy. Buddhism adopted it but changed the meaning subtly to make it an ethical position around 'right action'. It's route to China was through the spread of Buddhism. Certain philosophical positions of Han Dynasty and Warring States Daoism made the assimilation of Buddhism quite 'easy' but of course they changed each other - with Daoism taking on some of the Buddhist approach and Buddhism morphing into Ch'an /Zen. 'Pure? Daoism then would not have karma as such. The ethical basis to Daoism was then not to do with action - result which is the meaning of karma but to do with closeness or otherwise to the Dao - the way of things if you like ... ethics only occurring when the way had been departed from ... so it is a kind of non-ethic. However if you take the pure meaning of karma as action - result then it has proven to be a very useful idea which is a very helpful way of understanding the world and how to act in it. And as such is not necessarily Buddhist or otherwise but more like common sense - this is providing you get rid of the fanciful parts of some ideas about it. For instance many scientist would not have a problem with it and also I believe many Christians accept something like karma even though it is not part of their doctrine. And if they do - then it doesn't make them any less Christian and by analogy if a Song or Tang dynasty Daoist talks about karma it doesn't make them any less Daoist. Well this is my opinion of course.

Is this why they call you Mr. Helpful?

You have some serious problems ...