Encephalon

Spare me the victim shit about tolerance. You started it when you showed up a couple days ago and started spreading your patronizing and presumptuous chicken shit. I can understand how right-wingers come to deify their beloved 'market principles,' as if they were anything other than the social constructs they are. What I will never grasp, perhaps because of my own conceptual straightjacket, is how the principles of non-duality, interdependency, mutual causality, dependent co-arising, etc., that are the essence of Buddhism and Taoism, can even be realized in a world of us vs them, which has characterized conservative thought since Edmund Burke. But I guess anything is possible if you listen to Glen Beck and come to believe that socialism is the same as fascism, and that Obama is a Marxist and a fascist, a socialist and Hitler all rolled into one. The right to health care was a consensus written into the UN Charter of Human Rights after WWII, when we were forced to confront our indignity to each other and somehow came up with the idea that awarding the means to a dignified life for every human being, instead a select few, might lessen the animosity in the world. I'm not saying the idea worked, but of course, it was never taken seriously anyway.

"The promises are borderline absurd and the problems are completely ignored. The demonization of the health care industry by the government because they, god forbid, want to earn a profit, is another case of government propaganda gone extreme." Yes, in every other industrialized democracy health care is considered a human right, not a commodity. And it's not about preserving the right of the American health care industry to make a profit; the debate is whether the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry should continue to enjoy the ability to siphon off wealth for what is a rather weak creative contribution to the problem of health care. This is just the latest episode in an industry that has outlived its utility and is now screaming that the world will end if they lose the right to pick our pockets. Maybe you'll remember the conflict between ditch diggers who were thrown out of work when steam shovel technology came on line. The whole theory of propoganda has completely bounced off your forehead. Propoganda in authoritarian societies doesn't have to be sophisticated or even effective when you've got state power to bludgeon the population. In relatively open societies, where state power is less authoritarian, it becomes more important to control what people think, and to carefully craft the background assumptions that exist in a culture, i.e., more sophisticated forms of controlling public opinion. You might also want to consider replacing the idea that government and corporations are insomehow having contentious relations with the more defendable scenario that corporate power and government power are becoming conjoined. It's called fascism, and just because you've got a handful of liberal politicians holding elective office doesn't mean that corporate culture doesn't wield inordinate power over governmental institutions. I suppose you think corporations are legal people and that they have the right to unlimited campaign contributions,right? Well, stay tuned. It's coming. You're a little young to be such a rightwing twit, aren't you?

I have osteo-arthritis in my R shoulder. I get a cortisone shot every 5 or 6 months. My physician says that Western med still can't replace cartilage that has been ground out of your joints, but I have read that chi kung can alleviate the pain and swelling of arthritis as well as osteo-arthritis. Has anyone had experience with bone on bone - wear and tear issues that responded well, perhaps even reversed course? Miracles happen right? Can I get to the point where I can start sending the chi in the direction of my shoulder? Thanks in advance.

I've been posting points like this in here for some time. The humans that make it to the 22nd century will be Taoists. After the oil crash, there will be no other way to live on this earth. Period. That's my personal fusion of global studies, geography, and Taoism. Perhaps we can discuss at length some time elsewhere. Regards, Blasto in LA www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net is not my website. It belongs to an attorney up in Sonoma County CA, wine country. He just took a course in natural healing and is totally on board with post-crash skill set development, including the medical side.

I think this is because we recognize and experience our own potential for growth and see the wisdom in growing at our own organic rhythm. The people I learned important lessons from weren't consciously assisting me; they were merely setting a good example of wisdom and compassion.

Long term is the keyword there with regard to natural anti-inflams. I've heard that msm doesn't do the job as it was once thought to do. At my age (49), it doesn't make sense to go with shoulder replacement surgery because I would be sacrificing significant ROM for modest pain relief. Prudent cortisone inj. works. I'm thinking about a not too distant future where the health care in the US, like everything else, just completely deteriorates. But I'm a happy Doomer. I was a medic years ago. I think my post-crash skill set is going to be medical, along with gardening, cooking, and hopefully, medical qigong. Thanks for your prompt reply. I may end up with 100s of questions for you! www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

Well it is certainly a debatable point. Alex Carey, the Australian activist/ historian who was regularly quoted by Chomsky said that the 20th century was characterized by three developments; the rise of democracy, the rise of corporate power, and the rise in the use of propoganda by corporate power in order to contain democracy. That's not my only element of my argument, but yes, vulnerable populations can be conditioned to believe and do almost anything, including voting against their own best interests, especially in an environment of electronic media bombardment. Did anyone ever see or read "Manufacturing Consent?"

Bailing

I think the biggest challenge in bringing western students into contact with Daoist teachers would be to find western students who were sincere, humble, mature, and educated enough to be granted the honor of studying with authentic teachers. Hell, I'd have my lips sutured shut if it meant I could get a chance to study intimately. Stigweard, are you concerned about cultural sensitivity issues, or hurdles of translation and transmission? Practical steps seem plausible to overcome these obstacles, but I've never travelled to China.

I hate to say it, but since I'm a geographer and I subscribe to "Doomer" global scenarios, the alleged threat that China may pose to a western power structure in the near future probably ain't gonna happen, because they lose over 10% of their GDP just by their polluted environment alone; they are running out of water (Himalayan glaciers retreating dramatically); they are running out of topsoil (food). It's really tragic, because I believe the Chinese, at least the ancient chinese, have given the world more than any other civilization. They may well occupy Siberia before 2050, and that might not go over very well with the Russians, but they won't be in a position to do anything much either. (Guess what happens to a population that consumes 4.5 gallons of vodka per year, per capita?)

Well said. A lot of people are thrown by an exact definition of the current Chinese model. After flying their "Marxist" flag since the days of Mao, they decided in the 90s to really harness the economic engine of capitalism while keeping an authoritarian state power structure in place. Erich Fromm wrote "Marx's Concept of Man" back in 1961, but it's still a great read if you want to get an idea of: what was really going on in Marx's head about human nature, how several countries seized and twisted Marx's moral arguments in defense of their own despotisms, and how the West was perfectly willing to accept misconstrued and self-serving definitions of marxist states when they started showing up in the twentieth century. There really has been no pure communism or even close approximations of socialism, although the social democracies of Northern Europe/Scandanavia come close. Remember the Golden Rule of western political ideology; don't ever say anything good about socialism. O M G!! We agree on something! Isn't it precious??

I've had carpal tunnel surgery on both hand in the last three years. (it has a 99.9% success rate). We all know what a pinched nerve feels like, especially if it travels. Today, while standing in Embrace Tree, I was able to control an oscillating sensation between my left and right hands; a rotating sensation that bounced back and forth between R and L with a frequency of approximately two pulses per second. I'm awfully excited about the whole thing. Is it too soon to quit my day job? Just prior to this experience I was using my mind to direct attention to each finger, to get it to throb individually before moving on to the next digit. That's when the oscillation kicked in.

The Wise Heart (Kornfield) is priceless. A therapist friend of mine says it's really making the rounds within the mental health/counseling community.

Thanks for the Heads Up on the Carpal tunnel data. I'm lucky I have Kaiser. They perform a nerve conduction test; two electrical leads and an O-scope. I flat-lined the test, both arms. I had to have the surgery, after years of working on fishing boats and construction sites. I just have to ask; is it typical to have such breakthroughs, or milestones, with such rapidity? My chronology was two solid years of nei kung as taught my Master Chu http://www.chutaichi.com/neikung.shtml Then, as some of you know and graciously commented on, I overheated myself and broke out in a rash and dry skin on my face and the bottom of my feet. So I stopped Embrace Tree and performed twenty minutes of Horse Stance with my hands on my tan tien, and voila! the heat ricochet stopped and the chi turbine in the Lower Vessel just went totally ape-shit. This was quickly followed by dramatic (by my standards) and wilful control of chi sensation. Yesterday's finger experiment was the most profound so far, and I was able to duplicate the same thing last night around midnight. All I'm working toward is a decent MO by Christmas. Heat. Movement. Inner sensitivity. I'm sort of a house husband right now so I have the opportunity to really dig into this stuff, which may explain why I have daily surprises. Thanks for your feedback and encouragement. Half the time I am ready to bail on this forum because of all the egocentrism that pervades the threads (uh, mine included, but I'm working on it). Perhaps if I just stick with issues surrounding personal physical experience, and leave the philosophy and intellectualizing out of it I can still get enormous benefit from participating in here. I'll let you know when I have successfully jettisoned my ego.

The only reason I introduced the point about the value of reading is to remind westerners of the pitfalls of misinterpreting ancient Chinese texts, because their is a very real conceptual firewall between western and eastern thought. An unschooled person could be subject to a tremendous amount of confusion and bewilderment if they had to get their minds around the suject of non-duality, for example, without a thorough background. Western thought and civilization was once described as a footnote to Plato. Are we going to come up with that insight while sitting on our zafu, or might we be introduced to the concept by a thoughtful reading plan? This simple point pretty much bounced off the foreheads of just about everyone who saw fit to comment on the subject, except for the ones who have actually performed some scholastic work in the area (you know who you are!). There is a great deal of beating each other over the head with quotes from ancient texts, just like the Bible Wars that you see so much of in America. As far as the Vipassana tradition goes, it really is unparalleled in terms of how its basic integrity has remained unchanged over the eons. But the idea that you would reject reading books, by, say, by Jack Kornfield, who is one of the west's leading authorities on Vipassana and Buddhist psychology, out of some misplaced fear that your path would suffer some kind of fatal divergence, is a profoundly uninformed argument. Personal experience is superior, of course, and the insight from meditation will always remain the ultimate qualifier. But before that mature state is acquired, a fertile field has to be cultivated.

http://www.mkprojects.com/pf_TibetanRites.htm I've started to do these again in the morning before my nei kung Embrace Tree. Subjectively, yeah... they feel great. I'm using them again because my Kundalini yoga dvd is too rough on my shoulder joint. Any extraordinary tales to relate? Thanks in advance.

My apologies. I stand corrected. I haven't gotten far enough in my studies to realize that Buddhism is both BS and a religion. Nor did I get the memo that reading was counter-productive to spiritual advancement. I was also unaware that the Four Noble Truths, from which all further teachings can be derived, are impervious to manipulation and misinterpretation, as religious ideas generally are. I was utterly ignorant of the fact that we can jettison other forms of learning and acquire perfect wisdom just by feeling it while we're in deep meditation. Thanks for setting me straight.

You can go ahead and enlighten me on my ecological studies. From the sound of it, you are vastly more knowledgable and educated than I am, and quite possibly much older and better read. I'd love to hear about your sources of information and your insights into the nature of my own. It would seem that Taoism as practiced by TaoBum regulars yields extraordinary powers of mindreading. I am particularly impressed with your knowledge of the treatment of meditation by ancient texts. It would seem that you have the power to talk out of your ass and still find room to be presumptuous with people you've never spoken with. Who knows, I may have taken classes from you once. Maybe if you're published I can just read your books. Can you send me your CV?

That settles it. I'm going forward with my sex change operation.

I think you could make that argument, but it's important too remember that zen is Japanese and somewhat of a product of the samurai ethos, as others in the forum have pointed out, so it's important to understand the roots of your own private blend. Tao is more body-centered than zen or chan, and, in its own unique way, is a more comprehensive teaching because it unifies so many different subjects. There are plenty of body-centered teachings that came out of the buddhist tradition (Shaolin) but Buddhism has a more developed social and psychological theory. As a rule, go for balance. If you have a tendency to intellectualize, get physical. If you're personal power exceeds your moral and ethical development, you need to go for mind training and some formal studies in Buddhist ethics.

dead thread

Also, be forewarned, as I was NOT! This is a tender subject in here. The degree to which Buddhism is regarded as viable subject matter in a Taoist forum is still a hotly debated point. And we really do have our equivalent of the southern Baptists arguing over whether total immersion in a river is necessary for a Baptism to take effect, or whether a couple drops of water sprinkled on the forehead does the job. I'm not kidding.

Understand the relationship between Tao and zen first. Zen Buddhism was the intellectual offspring of Taism and Indian Buddhism, although this melding occured in China, so it was called 'chan.' It's called 'zen' by the Japanese. You can just about combine anything you want, and it's inevitable, but you really want an accurate roadmap for studying Buddhism because it is such a vast subject. Like Christianity, orthodox Buddhism and the extant writings were composed hundreds of years later after the Buddha's era, and certain liberties of interpretation have been taken. It is the religious trajectory whether in the east or west. In my opinion, which is something I really don't have on the subject because I cannot yet improve upon the Buddhist scholars who have come before us, Buddhism is the science of mind, whereas Taoism offers more of a body-centered path. I need both. I think the world needs both.

Exceeeeeeeeeeeedingly good advice! Studying Buddhism is like studying Christianity or jazz or candy; there are so many variations and definitions. If you are a westerner, then you might want to start reading works by authors who are part of the East/West dialogue. They can be either Easterners or Westerners, but the important point is that they possess the cross-cultural insight to skillfully express the ideas. Stephen Batchelor - Buddhism without Beliefs David Loy - The Great Awakening and Money, Sex, War, Karma Jack Kornfield - The Wise Heart Mindfulness in Plain English - Bhante Henepola Gunuratana Most of these are on Amazon.