Encephalon

INITIATIVE Let us not be confused With kaleidoscopic reality. Using wisdom and courage to act, Let us not add to the confusion. The world is a storm of myriad realities, yet we cannot allow ourselves to be swept into the vortex. To do so is to be lost and to lose the true center where all understanding will come. We must act, but in the right way. Action must be guided by both intellect and experience. We learn from teachers, elders, and others. But we must also test what we learn in the world. It is not enough to simply meditate, and it is not enough just to have theoretical knowledge. We need both in order to be wise. Only when wisdom, courage, timing, and perseverance are combined can one have a sound basis for initiative. The action must be complete. It must burn clean; it cannot leave any bad ramifications or lingering traces. An act that leaves destruction, resentment, or untidiness in its wake it a poor one. Then initiative is insufficient, and Tao has not been attained.

I remember coming in here last spring with similar questions. Got a lot of very sound advice, Eternal Student's feedback figuring most prominently. There's no question that this herb can relax you, which in turn contributes to a mind/muscle connection, which furthers an ultimate union of body and mind. But the stuff is unwieldy if you use it everyday, and you will soon lose the ability to feel any energy without it. For Tao-mined folks who positively, absolutely cannot let it go completely, take Dr. Andrew Weil's advice and smoke it once a week, say, on a Saturday night. Immerse yourself in the reverie of stretching and deep relaxation, take notes, experience breakthroughs with you screenplay. And then hang it up til next Saturday night. You'll get the benefit of the inspirational effects, without steeping in the delusional element that the herb invariably introduces when ingested chronically. PS - I'm going to give this a try and see if my adrenals can be revitalized. http://www.discount-vitamins-herbs.net/Adrenal-cleanse.htm

Be on the lookout for how much $$ the Vatican sends to Haiti.

Yes, by all means, let this thread die. I agree, you're about as pathetic and morbidly dramatic as they come. Don't stop now. The trick to getting people to truly pity you is to demonstrate just how impotent you are, at which point they won't piss on your head if your hair is on fire. Then you will have arrived at the state of pure loneliness. Wallow in this spring of self-pity. Drink deeply, really soak in it. When it dawns on you that this strategy of getting mercy fucks no longer works, you'll clip off your imaginary umbilical cord and try something more productive.

Given all the advice about not soliciting psychological advice from the internet, you could actually do much worse than asking for help from this forum, because there are dozens (hundreds? Thousands?) of us who have wrestled with the inner demon of low self esteem, low ego strength, however you wish to define it. If this is your core demon, then there is hope, and you're in good company. You need to be specific about your plight. We're not here to play "20 Questions." There's no such thing as "practically a virgin;" that's right up there with "kinda pregnant." The term "involuntary celibacy" is also cumbersome. Celibacy is sexual abstinence, including masturbation. If you're suffering the plight of loneliness but still have orgasms then you are not living a celibate life. Kindly respond to these simple points first before we start pulling teeth, or else this will appear as another episode of "Harvesting sympathy from the Internet." There's a lot of wisdom in here if you know how to ask for it.

COOPERATION Cooperation with others. Perception, experience, tenacity. Know when to lead and when to follow. When we become involved with a fellowship, we must gradually become an integral, organic part of that organization. The relationship will be one of mutual influence : We must carefully influence the collective, and in turn, we will be shaped by the company we keep. Influencing others requires perception. We need to know when to act, when to be passive, when others are receptive to us, and when they will not listen. This takes experience, of course, and it is necessary to take part in a great many relationships -- from our families to community associations -- to cultivate the proper sensitivity. In time, there will be moments of both frustration and success, but in either case, a certain tenacity is crucial. If we are thwarted in our initiatives, then we must persevere by either maintaining our position or changing it if a better one prevails. If we are successful, we must not rely on charisma alone, but we must also work to fully realize what the group has resolved to do. True leadership is a combination of initiative and humility. The best leader remains obscure, leading but drawing no personal attention. As long as the collective has direction, the leader is satisfied. Credit is not to be taken, it will be awarded when the people realize that it was the subtle influence of the leader that brought them success.

I'm on it. Thanks.

ORDINARY Umbrella, light, landscape, sky -- There is no language of the holy. The sacred lies in the ordinary. No one is able to describe the spiritual except by comparing it to ordinary things. One scripture describes the divine word as an "umbrella of protection." Another says a god is light. Heaven is supposed to be in the sky, and even ascetics who have rejected sex use erotic images to describe enlightenment. People have to resort to metaphor to state the divine. Even esoteric languages have been invented, and they mystify the outsider. Holy words always appear that way to the uninitiated. After one learns to read them, their message becomes assimilated. We no longer worry about the images, for we have found the truth that the words were indicating. When you buy something that has assembly instructions, you follow the directions, but you do not then venerate the instructions. Spiritual attainment is no different. Once you've gained it, instructions become secondary. Spirituality gained is no different than the ball game you play, the work you do, the car you drive, the love you make. If you constantly regard Tao as extraordinary, then it remains unknown and outside yourself -- a myth, a fantasy, an unnameable quantity. But once you know it, it is yours and part of your daily life.

The above runs so counter to my own experience that I'm having a difficult time practicing what they call in the critical thinking movement "intellectual empathy." Not that I am ready to dismiss your sentiments out of hand. It's just that my own 35 years of Buddhist study has been informed not by traditional orthodoxies but by the western writers, beginning with the original Dharma Bums out here on the west coast, like Suzuki and Watts, and up through the contemporary generation of Buddhist scholars, those who have participated and contributed to academic east/west dialogue (the aforementioned scholars as an example, who were almost exclusively politically progressive.) So, my introduction to Buddhism came from those who were truly looking for the emancipatory elements of Buddhism, but also from the scientists like Capra and Macy, who were busy connecting ecology and general systems theory to Buddhist doctrines of mutual causality and and interdependence (the Paticca Samuppada specifically). That's my Left Coast, California Buddhism story for ya! Have a good weekend. PS - Suzuki wasn't a westerner, of course. My mischaracterization. He was just one of the first zen masters who made it across the Pacific.

"I" don't. This is the consensus drawn by the voices I've come to respect and depend on for the construction of my own worldview. I would have to include the humanist community in general, from Robert Ingersoll and the Free Thinking movement of the 1800s through Nietsche, Bertrand Russell, Erich Fromm, CP Snow, maybe Marx, maybe a few others. I was a critical thinking junkie as an undergrad, which only cemented my secular orientation. But a cursory reading of European history could probably go a long way too. This is not to suggest that religion does not or can not play an important role in personal spiritual evolution, because it certainly played a positive role in my own. And at the tender age of 35, it was eclipsed by my formal studies. My spiritual life (not my religious one) only became richer for it, however.

I think all college grads should commend one another for the fortitude involved. I would have to bring myself up to speed to even respond to your opening points, but the following points,highlighted in red, throw up a few flags for me. You are not in some indistinct "now" -- you are in a precise, ever-changing, ever-valid (not illusory anymore than any other) texture that spells, to one living it, e.g., something like "warm, soft, moist, timely, fragrant, cherished, in need of protection, funny to look at from the top, flowing from the kidneys, redirected by dong quai, modulated by licorice, in the Seventh Palace under a Money Star, ancient, reliable," whatever -- on and on you notice reality and its energies and swim in that and know and feel and think and live instead of resenting and seeking to "transcend" so as to be "one with everything." A taoist is one with everything not "later" and not "if she deserves it by thinking the Right Thougts and doing the Right Actions" and not "if she escapes rebirth" -- humbug!-- she is one with everything by virtue of being and becoming -- simultaneously and at all times and in all states. "Resenting" is key term here, and it appears as if there is some resentment toward Buddhist tools of the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path in particular. There has been a lot of criticism of these Buddhist tools, as if they are moralistic orders laid down from above. The small but robust Buddhist camp I identify with - contemporary Buddhist agnosticism (Loy, Batchelor, Macy, and others) - regards these teachings as challenges to act in reponse to the enormity of being born. The dharma is not something to believe in but something to do. Jack Kornfield ("The Wise Heart") digs deeply into this element of Buddhist psychology, which has very little to do with moralizing or merit-based spiritual progress. Batchelor's "Buddhism Without Beliefs" has completely divorced itself from traditional orthodoxy, and speaks beautifully of the raw experience of interdependency, of "swimming in energy" if you will. Joanna Macy in "'The Dharma of Natural Systems" takes it even farther. There needn't be resentment here. But as you must know, Buddhism is no more monolithic than Christianity or Islam. It appears as if this is a case of misdirected resentment fuleing an argument that Taoism and Buddhism have 'nothing' in common. I could be entirely wrong, of course. Cheers.

I think you're right - I believe it ultimately boils down to possessing control over others. Whether this impulse stems from a simple lust for power, or from the fear of human beings creating chaos once they are unleashed, is something I'm still wrestling with. We have so much potential, and yet we create such nightmares for ourselves.

I don't know what I could do to make others participate. I'm sure a general invitation will work, at least in this forum. The only thing that I would add to my list already is to reemphasize the benefits of an inversion table. I would also invest in this product and use it three times a week - http://www.neilmed.com/usa/products.php In addition to downloading binaural beat technology, I'd check out a copy of this and put it on your ipod. http://www.amazon.com/Way-Leadership-Timel...4410&sr=1-2 Honestly, for young people today, I hope you check out my signature links. The world we are about to enter is going to be absolutely unbearable for those who cannot adapt. Build your post-industrial skill set, start your medical chi kung training NOW, find a community to live in - www.ic.org - and don't fool yourself into thinking that suburban consumer bliss ain't coming to an end. Once the commerical real estate bubble bursts, by April or May of this year, possibly coinciding with a return to $100/barrel oil, the party will be over for millions more. Serious Taoists will find the coming era full of opportunities for self-mastery.

Once you're in bone-on-bone state, no running is indicated. I do kettlebell swings for the posterior chain for strenth, flexibilty and cardio. Glucosamine is great for the pre-bone-on-bone state but once you're there, it offers little help. The goal is to be preventive as early as you can, not to give in to endorphine addiction like I did when I was young and restless!

This is similar in spirit to what I have attempted to point out. I don't lie awake at 3:00 am obsessing about the Church's history. It's the way the church behaves in the present, particulalry with this Pope at the helm, that explains a lot of disappointment and anger, particularly with mysogeny, pedophilia, the prohibition against priests getting married or allowing women to be ordained, their outright hostility to liberation theology of Any stripe, and their indifference to environmental catastrophe. The Buddhists have a saying that the teachings are like a raft to get from one side of the river to the next. Once you make the crossing, you leave the raft on the shore. You don't resume your journey by carrying it on your shoulders. I don't honestly believe I could detract from this sentiment in any meaningful way, but if I had to weigh the good against the bad, my own opinion, and the opinion of my humanist brethren (surprise surprise) is that the positive contributions of christian orthodoxies have been eclipsed by the negative components. As C.P. Snow once said, "More crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than in the name of rebellion."

TIME The river, surging course, Uninterrupted current. Headwater, channel, mouth. Can they be divided? Each day, we all face a peculiar problem. We must validate our past, face our present, plan for the future. Those who believe that life was better in the "old days" sometimes are blind to the reality of the present; those who live only for the present frequently have little regard for either precedent or consequence; and those who live only for some deferred reward often strain themselves with too much denial. Thinking of past, present, and future is a useful conceptual technique, but ultimately they must be appropriately balanced and joined. We must understand how the past affects us, we should keep the present full of rich and satisfying experiences, and we should devote some energy each day to building for the future. Just as a river can be said to have parts that cannot be clearly divided, so too should we consider the whole of our time when deciding how to spend our lives. Deng Ming-Dao

Tunacow metaphors notwithstanding, do you not think it significant that they both Buddhism and Taoism subscribe to nonduality, even though they originated in different countries, while dualistic thinking is virtually endemic to the Western intellectual tradition? This distinction between east and west is one of the biggest paradigmatic fault lines humanity has ever created. It's regularly discussed by the academic Buddhist community and those voices in east/west dialogue. How can you be so cavalier in dismissing it? To resort to my own metaphor, this is like someone from Santa Barbara claiming to have no similarities with someone living in Santa Monica. Laplanders would probably find the differences irrelevent beside the similarities.

vitiate

I would probably have to say that for many, in America at least, the comparison between the New Age and the mystical, communal, non-duality tradition would be an unfair one for the latter. There is a sincere contemplative tradition from both the east and west that has nothing to do with New Age pop-spirituality. Does the term New Age have a derogatory context in Europe too? The material you posted on leg meridians was very helpful. Thank you. That being said, surely you must agree that in terms of nonduality, THE pillar of Asian philosophy, Taoism and Buddhism are in accord, yes? That's a pretty significant consensus, and not surprising at all given their mutual histories.

That's a remarkable story. Speaking for America, the absolutist streak runs through both Protestant and Catholic churches. The Unitarians, the United Methodists, and Episcopals are completely hip to the ecumenical vibe, as well as Catholic churches with progressive congregations. Likewise, we have the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons and the Jimmy Swaggerts amongst the Prots, although the conservative Catholics don't usually disembark from the Reality Train the way their Protestant counterparts do, at least not on television!

So what is Nirvana, which is beyond suffering, really about? It cannot only be about consciousness! The Nirvana that the Buddha realized must exist beyond consciousness, according to his own teachings. When the mind awakens to its true nature, the State of Presence is realized. But when one awakens to the true nature of Presence itself, the Unmanifested is realized. The Unmanifested is also called "Being" or "the Absolute." Being is the source from which Presence arises and is prior to Presence. In Buddhism the term "Emptiness" is used for Being. I think your your second sentence is subject to considerable debate. The written accounts I've read, and the definitions rendered by monks I've known, state unambiguously that Nirvana is simpy perfect mental health, the capacity to interpret your experience without the filters of the Three Poisons - greed, hatred, and delusion - which, according to both Buddhist psychology and modern psychology, are the three most primitive thought-forms the mind is capable of generating before you have to go subcortical. I think this point simplifies the matter and vitiates the remainder of your paragraph. Just tryin' to keep it simple. As a general rule, I've had to become wary of introductions that begin with "Buddhism states...," or with "Any ism states..." I'm firmly rooted in the growing camp of agnostic, humanistic Buddhists, and Buddhism is no more a monolithic voice than is Christianity.

POSITIONING Heron stands in the blue estuary, Solitary, white, unmoving for hours. A fish! Quick avian darting; The prey captured. People always ask how to follow Tao. It is as easy and natural as the heron standing in the water. The bird moves when it must; it does not move when stillness is appropriate. The secret of its serenity is a type of vigilance, a contemplative state. The heron is not in mere dumbness or sleep. It knows a lucid stillness. It stands unmoving in the flow of the water. It gazes unperturbed and is aware. When Tao brings it something that it needs, it seizes the opportunity without hesitation or deliberation. Then it goes back to its quiescence without disturbing itself or its surroundings. Unless it found the right position in the water's flow and remained patient, it would not have succeeded. Actions in life can be reduced to two factors : positioning and timing. If we are not in the right place at the right time, we cannot possibly take advantage of what life has to offer us. Almost anything is appropriate if an action is in accord with the time and the place. But we must be vigilant and prepared. Even if the time and the place are right, we can still miss our chance if we do not notice the moment, if we act inadequately, or if we hamper ourselves with doubts and second thoughts. When life presents an opportunity, we must be ready to seize it without hesitation or inhibition. Position is useless without awareness. If we have both, we make no mistakes. There are all kinds of jokes out there from the West that are loosely related to this, i.e., the person who consistently misses the signs of God's grace and then concludes that there is none. Or the man stranded on the roof of his house during a flood, who passed up offers repeatedly for rescue by several people, saying that God would save him. He dies, and asks why God didn't save him, and God replies, "WTH, I sent five people in boats to get you!"

Well said.

I read the same review. He might as well have said that he doesn't like tapioca pudding; there was no explanatory power behind his review, and, as you will note, the ten other reviews were All five stars, with some sound reflection to back them up. The program begins with the static Embrace Horse posture and is followed by nine dynamic movements which are designed to circulate the chi that you've built up from the first posture. But is NOT about circulating chi with the breath/movement combination; the breathing pattern that is maintained througout the program is long, slow, rythmic, deep and continuous. This is all about using the mind to direct chi, not the breath. It is internal. From the Intro - "While Nei Kung is considered an internal system of physical development, the cultivation ofchi can also be approached externally, as with the "eight Bouqet" exercises of the "Five Animal Games" of the early Taoist physical disciplines. The external approach attempts to "pump" chi into the body, while the internal system stresses the body in a specific manner so as to create a chi "vacuum," as it were, that permits the body to absorb chi more naturally... increasing the body's capacity to soak up the energy automatically... blockages in chi flow are opened up gently without applying force.."