Encephalon

Boobs.

Oh yeah, the "Tibetan" vibe has been thoroughly discredited.

I have been encouraged, on more than one occasion, to stick to subject matter pertinent to Taoism. I find the subject of Taoism so vast that it I often find meaningful linkages (at least in my own mind) between Taoism and other subjects that aren't immediately evident. I have noticed a conspicuous absence of subject matter, or even interest, in Taoism as it relates to the future. Perhaps that is the way it should be - a forum for all of us to explore and share our personal experiences with practice, instruction, education. But a broader dialogue about how to harness the power of Taoism in order to more successfully navigate a future that is rapidly degenerating into a Very Dark Era for humankind seems to be a pertinent subject. I know there are elements of the population, the New Age folks, who ignore the physical and life sciences and sooth their consciences with tales of an impending Aquarian Age where we will somehow be relieved of the burden of having to take responsibility for the welfare of humanity and the planet. Back in the New Age heyday of the 80s, I once counted myself as a member of this tribe. Anyway, the following is from www.kunstler.com Kunstler is a hero among urban planners, futurists, geographers, architects. I am always struck by how pertinent Taoist wisdom appears when I read Kunstler's essays. I could be massively wrong. I've already been properly scolded for making assumptions that all TTB Taoists share my progressive political and cultural values. Boy, was that an eye-opener! FYI - Reality Receding By James Howard Kunstler on September 14, 2009 6:33 AM Now that everybody in the USA, from the janitors in their man-caves to the president addressing congress, has declared the "recession" over, is exactly the moment when what's left of the so-called economy is most likely to implode. If there were still shoeshine boys on Wall Street, they'd be starting their own hedge funds now, and CNBC's Larry Kudlow would be toasting them in the Grill Room of The Four Seasons. What we've seen in the vaunted rally for the last six months is the triumph of wishing over facts, combined with the most arrant market manipulation by floundering banks backstopped by a panicked government -- all pounding sand down a rat-hole of hopeless non-performing debt, while pretending that the machinery of capital finance still grinds on. Despite what a few elderly Mr. Naturals may say about abolishing "capitalism," we're not going to have an advanced economy without a coherent banking system, and by advanced economy I mean one in which the lights stay on. By coherent I mean a system that is able to deploy accumulated wealth for productive purposes, in the service of continuing civilization. (And, yes, I know that the followers of Daniel Quinn are not so sure that civilization is worth the trouble, but unless you support the killing-off of about six billion humans right away, things on Earth are not favorably disposed just now for a return to hunting-and-gathering.) I would hasten to cut through the fog of despair to reassert -- for the thousandth time -- that a true American perestroika is possible, if the public could overcome the plague of cognitive dissonance sweeping the land and form a consensus for action that comports with reality's agenda. But that is looking less and less likely. Instead, what we see is a rush into delusion, seasoned with grievance and gall. Spectacles like last weekend's march on Washington don't happen for no reason, of course. From where I sit, the uproar can be attributed to comprehensively bad American leadership, a crisis in authority and legitimacy that has left a functional vacuum in every executive office throughout the land -- from the White House to the state houses, to the lairs of the CEOs, to the towers of the deans and department chairs, to the glitzy sets of the nightly news deliverers, to the makeshift quarters of the NGO chiefs. In former times, clueless and impotent leaders stuck their heads in the sand. Nowadays, with pandemic narcissism abroad in the land, the heads are more usually inserted into the aperture that leads into the large bowel.... But I indulge in diverting objurgation when I should perhaps explain this American perestroika more clearly. The Russian word roughly translates to "restructuring." They flubbed it in 1989 because their system was too ossified and too far gone -- though history and circumstance eventually did it for them. A similar outcome is possible here, too, in which things just have to completely fall apart before emergent reorganization occurs. But you can be sure that if we allow this to happen, an awful lot of things will get smashed along the way, including lives, careers, families, property, and cherished institutions. This monster we call the economy is not just an endless series of charts and graphs -- it's how we live, and that has to change, whether we like it or not. Now, it is obviously a huge problem that a majority of Americans don't like the idea. If they were true patriots, instead of overfed cowards and sado-masochists, they'd be inspired by the prospect. But something terrible has happened to our national character since the triumphal glow of World War Two wore off. I just hope that the Palinites and the myrmidons of Glen Beck don't destroy what's left of this country in a WWF-style "revolution." In the best societies, such idiots are marginalized by a kinder and sturdier consensus about justice. In America today, the center is not holding because there is no center. American perestroika really boils down to this: we have to rescale the activities of daily life to a level consistent with the mandates of the future, especially the ones having to do with available energy and capital. We have to dismantle things that have no future and rebuild things that will allow daily life to function. We have to say goodbye to big box shopping and rebuild Main Street. More people will be needed to work in farming and fewer in tourism, public relations, gambling, and party planning. We have to make some basic useful products in this country again. We have to systematically decommission suburbia and reactivate our small towns and small cities. We have to prepare for the contraction of our large cities. We have to let the sun set on Happy Motoring and rebuild our trains, transit systems, harbors, and inland waterways. We have to reorganize schooling at a much more modest level. We have to close down most of the overseas military bases we're operating and conclude our wars in Asia. Mostly, we have to recover a national sense of common purpose and common decency. There is obviously a lot of work to do in the list above, which could translate into paychecks and careers -- but not if we direct all our resources into propping up the failing structures of yesterday. The most dangerous illusion, of course, is a belief that we can return to a hyped up turbo debt "consumer" economy -- and perhaps the most disappointing thing about Barack Obama, is his incessant cheerleading for a "recovery" to what is already lost and unrecoverable. The man who ran for office on "change" doesn't really have the stomach for it. But, of course, events are in the driver's seat now, not personalities, even charming ones. I'd venture to say that if Mr. Obama thinks he's seen a crisis, and gotten through it, then he ain't seen nothin' yet. We are for sure not returning to the kind of credit orgy that made the last twenty years such a nauseating spectacle -- of which, by the way, the misfeasances and wretched excesses of Wall Street were just one manifestation. Some theorists out there say that economy follows mood, not vice-versa, and that the anger and sourness on display around the USA, in events like the weekend Washington march, is a clear sign that tectonic shifts in the structures of everyday life are sure to follow. There are too many truly good and intelligent people in this country, to leave our fate to the Palins and the Glen Becks. But the good people had better man up and start telling the truth with some conviction that the truth matters.

"Carson Zi is partially right, but not fully correct. There is the constant realization that transcends process, but process still happens, even though one is realized beyond the process. If you are constantly in the state of recognizing the empty and interdependent nature of everything? The endless process is constantly and spontaneously self liberating in every spherical moment for someone in that realization. Thus, one is fully and totally enlightened" Maybe it is just me, but I regularly find this kind of language and writing style to be positively impenetrable, cloudy, and utterly inconclusive. At my tender age of 49, I have found few writers/teachers who can offer their readers the gift of explanatory power while simultaneously delivering such flowery imprecision. Great minds have never had to hide behind such ornate obfuscations. I honor your exuberance, your passion, your appetite for knowledge and wisdom. But I simply have to ask, and I won't ask again - what is your educational background? Who have you studied with? I'm not so naive to think that a formal college education fills all intellectual gaps, but there is something to be said for the process whereby we test the veracity of our views with other students in a classroom environment. The ability to present information in a comprehensible style is a sign of true learning. The inability to do so is usually, although not always, a sign that deep internalization of material hasn't happened. I know this is aggressive inquiry. All I can say is that I would willingly subject myself to the same if asked.

Yep, the burden of thinking too much can be a big one. That's an important point I left out in my garbled treatise on self-loathing and its cure. Low self-esteem is bad enough when you're intellectually slow. It's positively horrific when you're intelligent, because not only do you lament your miserable life, but you have the additional anguish of feeling as if you are squandering your gifts and talents instead of turning them into great achievements. Guilt gets added to the toxic stew. Yes, thinking too much is frought with many dangers. That's one reason the ancient Taoists had a specific view about the proper progression of intellectual development; "Learning must proceed from simplicity to complexity, and then back from complexity to simplicity." See? Simple, right?

Your condition sounds vastly more familiar to me than the phantom legions of happy shiny people having fun. If I may... You may have fallen prey to a phenomenon that originally baffled the Dalai Lama when the subject first came up in a conference he was participating in. The subject was self-loathing, low self-esteem, self-contempt, undeservingness, personal unworthiness. Welcome to the Club!! This is epidemic in western culture. The Dalai Lama had to break for ten minutes with his translators before he was able to tease out the implications of what the subject truly revealed. I suppose you have had personal luck with soliciting supportive advice in this forum. I have too. Remember, though, that it is no substitute for professional help, but if you're not too far gone, still have a sense of curiosity about the world and possess the ability to learn independently, you should take the next two to four weeks and read Healing the Shame that Binds You, by John Bradshaw. This is THE book for people who eventually stumble upon the grand realization, after several previous failed investigations, that a deeply embodied sense of shame has skewed their self-perception toward the negative. There are so many reasons how this happens, an endless possibility of combinations of louzy conditioning and heritable traits. If you don't heal the shame, if you don't do the hard and honest work of excavating why you hate yourself so much and deserve so little, then you fall prey to a polarized personality. One appears pompous, condescending, pedantic, patronizing, and conceited. The other identity is utterly shame-based, self-destructive, self-pitying, unworthy, worse than everyone else by comparison. There are no level playing fields, no mature relations; you either present yourself as superior to everyone, or inferior. Both are false selves. If successfully treated, you will heal your sense of natural goodness, worthiness, and deservingness from the inside out and external reality will begin to improve as it becomes more consistent with your healthier inner environment. If this goes unaddressed for too long, you will be unwittingly compelled to sabotage your external reality until it reflects your inner dysfunction. Opportunities will be squandered, lucky breaks will be wasted, bridges will be burned, grace itself may seem to disappear and this pattern of ritualized self-sabotage will continue it breaks out of your unconscious, into your waking reality, where you finally go... "Oh. I get it." Besides taking stock of your own self worth, start your healing with the body. If you're in TTB to begin with, you must have some appreciation for body/mind disciplines. Don't try too hard to change your mind using your mind; start with the body. I'm sure there are hundreds of suggestions, but a couple yoga dvds and some serious chi kung classes (or my favorite - www.neikungla.com ) could do wonders if you're too sedentary. Getting a personal teacher sounds like the best advice of all. In fact, that's probably where I'm headed very soon myself. The diet recommendations listed above are also very sound. Do all of this and you'll make it. Good luck!!

It appears that the press releases above came came out within three days of each other, 2.5 years ago. I guess that obliges all of us to do a lit review of related stories since then, right? Any volunteers?

What an inspiring piece of good news! The idea that an enlightended Taoist population can generally be self-regulating without State coercion has been discussed elsewhere. Given the traditional suspicions that Chinese politicians once held for their Taoist citizens, there is genuine reason to rejoice at with this news. Wouldn't it be astonishing if Chinese authoritarianism ultimately gave way to the historical trinity of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism? Now, if the Chinese can figure out how to spare their environment and transcend their function as the world's provider of wage slavery, they may get a shot at a viable world model. The world is already indebted to the wisdom Chinese culture has contributed. Thank you for sharing this.

The issue of using pharmaceutical agents, natural or synthesized, for the purpose of dealing with emotional storms does not have to become so complicated. Some people are mentally ill and need to be on their meds because human DNA ain't perfect; some of us come out with chemical issues that need to be rectified. If you need to go on a mild anti-anxiety agent for a temporary period in order to reacquire your emotional balance, then do it! And when you've found your balance, ween off of it. You've gotten some very sound advice in here, my friend, but none of us can offer more. If the real people you share your life with are telling you to address this issue, then listen to them. You sound like you have good people in your life who can be honest with you.

"Mistrust those in whom the impulse to punish is strong."

Since I've only been doing Taoist internal energy work for approximately two years, I hesitate to even put in my two cents, but here goes. After studying Buddhism for decades and meditating on and off for over twenty years, Taoism seemed the answer to a body-centered philosophy. For Taoists, physical development and perfection is as important as the redemption of the soul is for Christians, and I am far enough along to understand why. I would read everything by Deng Ming-Dao you can get your hands on, especially "Scholar/Warrior: An Introduction to the Tao in Everyday Life." I would also read the classics, but jumping into the ancient texts without some philosophical background invites many perils of misinterpretation. "Picking and choosing" is a practice that can befall any student of Asian thought, just as it can befall Christians who do the same with the Bible. I got my physical practice started with Nei Kung as taught by Master Chu in NY, but I was instructed by his student Jim Borreli in Los Angeles. A superb introduction of the theory and practice of nei kung, or "internal chi kung" is available at www.neikungla.com. If you have a healthy curiosity, you may dive in and go crazy on Amazon with book purchases. I did so, but I inadvertantly created a "soup" of teachings, practices, theories, approaches. I would be delighted to know that I could successfully warn you away from the same mistake I made. There is a great deal of overlap, obviously, between the various teachers, but certain instructions differ, and it can quickly get confusing. A seasoned veteran in this forum has created the website http://www.alchemicaltaoism.com/ that can serve as a valuable navigational tool. The Microcosmic Orbit is considered the essential achievement before more advanced Taoist meditation and chi cultivation practices can be commenced. I made the mistake of attempting this too soon, when I should have been concentrating first on establishing "The Little Orbit." (Go to the link above and click "Establishing the Abdomen," and then click "The Little Orbit.") Practice this first; get a nice hot "embryo" of chi pulsating in your abdomen first, and then move on to the Microcosmic Orbit. This is perhaps the finest, most helpful piece of advice I have garnered, and I can now generate a tremendous amount of heat and energy that would have otherwise been scattered into other areas of my body. I overheated and broke out in rashes on my face and the bottom of my feet; this was unpleasant and avoidable. You will no doubt discover very quickly that Taoism is a vast subject that is particularly vulnerable to delusional interpretations and applications. I would encourage you to keep an enlightened faith in the validity of your senses and stick to a path toward mind/body union, rather than honing your ability to recite metaphysical esoterica. There's a place for that, but that's years away for most of us. The bottom line goal is to reawaken the feel of your nervous system, the part of your body that represents the real intersection of body and mind. BK Frantzis offers very lucid accounts of this phenomena in "Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body." I'm assuming you are a westerner. Whether that is true or not, I would listen to the westerners who have done the hard work of moving to China, studying the language, the culture, the artforms. They offer the rest of us the gift of making comprehensible what is often couched in impenetrable language. I found the following eassy extremely helpful in getting my western mind around the chi gung, and it might offer you a means of answering questions that people will inevitably ask you as your path into Taoist studies continues. http://www.ancientway.com/Pages/QiGong.html Good luck. Oh, I almost forget the most important stuff! Chi Kung is vastly easier to learn than tai chi. Nei Kung is even easier (at least the way Master Chu and Jim Borrelli teach it). There are many stories of people studying tai chi for years, carefully mimicking the physical movements, without ever getting to the real stuff, the chi flow, which is what it's all about. Ryan T's advice about accessibility to teachers is important. If that's not an option, at least make use of this guy, who offers sound advice on postures.

"The desire for a strong faith is not the proof of a strong faith, rather the opposit. If one has it one may permit oneself the beautiful luxury of scepticism: one is secure enough, firm enough, fixed enough for it. Twilight of the Idols 1888.

I did a lit review on B. Beats and deemed it worthy to try it out. Someone in here sent me a custom Kunlun binaural beat and I love the subjective experience, but of course, I have no way of independently verifying if it is performing as promised. Anyone who goes to college in the US is required to take one lower division critical thinking class, which is pathetic because 1) it ain't nearly enough, and 2) many of the teachers don't know how to teach the class. But the absolute minimum proficiency in CT would familiarize students with the importance of clarification of terms. This forum regularly fails to achieve even that basic proficiency. I've seen threads completely unravel and give birth to mulitple conversations in less than 7 or 8 posts. Want to ask a question about meditation? Great! So let's introduce the subject of trance states! Let's muddy the waters so much that none of us are beholden to even the slightest tenets of cognitive hygiene! Let's introduce anything! Everything! Let's focus on material that is beyond the realm of verifiability and falsifiability, so that we needn't ever again be accountable to reason! I come in here because, like many of you, I have a hunger for this subject matter, and I frequently get issues of energy practice resolved. I have been repeatedly heartened by the deeply thoughtful advice on energy work, meridians, the microcosmic orbit, even diet. But all too often, it turns into a masturbation contest - "Who can get themselves off the quickest with the most metaphysical speculation!" I must get something out of it, tho, right? Nice job Scotty. Very thoughtful reply. Points well taken.

Of course, "Cannibal Corpse - A Skull Full of Maggots" is an awfully inspiring tune when engaged in the full lotus.

I have to admit that in my haste to respond to certain points I allow emotionality to color my sentiments. My apologies; the points raised deserve honest answers. I've been a (non-professional) musician all my life and have played in bands since I was a jazz band nerd in junior high school 35 years ago.. Like many others in here, I am familiar with the rich history of the role of music and spitiuality and have played in enough bands in college to get some idea about the spiritual side of music. Billy Childs composes music that puts me into a mental state that I cannot replicate with other sources, but I'm not meditating when I'm listening to it. Meditation and induced trance states have different goals, they have different purposes, different functions. I believe the origianl question was focused on meditation. This thread could easily spin off into the specific function and goal of meditation. I would argue that, at the very least, the initial purpose of meditation is to shut off the steam of discursive thought that keeps us in a distracted state. If you can accomplish that, and then feel moved to investigate trance states, then go for it. If you really want to get into it, check out Ghandarva Ved. But skipping the essential step of experiencing and befriending silence and going straight into the pursuit of altered states of consciousness is really not the most efficient course of action. The mind desperately wants to attach itself to anything in order to avoid the experience of silence. giving in to this impulse, whether it is staring at a candle or listening to auditory phenomena, is to reject this essential step. Of course, I could probably just do myself and everyone else in here a big favor by admitting my skepticism, engaging in fewer battles, and shutting the hell up. "The first key to wisdom is this-constant and frequent questioning... for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth." Peter Abelard 1099-1142. "Philosophy means, first, doubt; and afterwards the consciousness of what knowledge means, the consciousness of uncertainty and of ignorance, the consciousness of limit, shade, degree, possibility. The ordinary man doubts nothing and suspects nothing." Henri Frederic Amiel 1821-1881.

There is currently a thread by Stigweard regarding the challenges posed to Western students of Asian philosophies and practices. I concur with the gentleman who cited the preponderance of metaphysical half-truths disguised as wisdom as a formidable stumbling block for sincere and honest and seekers. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of this material in this forum. I have had tremendous success with affirmations linked to breath. Social anxiety wasn't so much a problem as a general self-loathing and low self-esteem. Reciting affirmations that correlate with specific chakras has been my exercise since January of this year and I can attest to their healing power (but you CANNOT afford to listen to a stranger's personal testimony!) The following links are a good place to start, and once you get going you can fine tune the messages. Critical thinking aside, if you repeat positive messages to yourself 100 times a day for months on end, it'll have an effect! http://www.1lovespirit.com/affirmations-chakras.html http://www.cloudnineyoga.com/yoga/topic/chakra-affirmations/ As far as biochemistry goes, drop the benzodiazepines as suggested above and give L-theanine a try. http://www.web-us.com/l-theanine_anxiety_reducer.htm This is nothing more than an amino acid derived from green tea. It won't make you sleepy but it makes a lot of stress and anxiety slough off like water off a ducks back. I used to buy it for my co-workers during Christmas season. Good luck. And beware of BS. TTB can be treacherous territory regarding misinformation.

You are absolutely right. The very idea that listening to music while meditating could have only come about in the era of recorded music. Remember the difference between prayer and meditation? Prayer is when you talk to God and he listens. Meditation is when God talks and you listen. A secular version might be that meditation is when you shut down the stream of discursive thought long enough to hear what the universe is telling you. "Soundtracks", for trance states? How a suggestion like this could even be offered, much less acted upon, is beyond my comprehension. "Key is listen and feel the resonance of the frequencies and how it affects your chakras but at the same time let go." How would you know if you even acquired the sensitivity to detect these effects, or were even capable of ruling out the physiological effects of expectation? I'm sorry, but this advice does not even rise to the level of silliness. The author of this stuff regularly demonstrates some familiarity with Asian esoterica, but most of us are capable of generating our own metaphysical amusements without having them prescribed by others. If you want to make meditation an important part of your life, bone up on binaural beat technology, and if you live in a noisy environment, invest $30 in a pair of noise cancelling headphones. Otherwise, skip the music.

My latest ongoing diet discovery. I took a cue from Mike Mahler, big time martial artist/kettlebell aficionado in Santa Monica CA, and decided to eat an orange, by itself, as the first meal of the morning. It has an alkalizing effect on your bloodstream, which creates a ph that is less likely to invite viral and microbial attack. The food combining chart also recommends eating citrus by itself because it digests so quickly and if you eat other, slower digesting food items, you set the fruit sugar up for fermentation, and all hell breaks loose (for some), and you end up blaming fruit for your distress. I have also been wrestling with whether to share this recipe or not; it seems I could market it and make $$ but I'm too lazy and generally regard the whole field of marketing as a subject thought up by demons on crack. So here goes. Massive fiber, protein, complex carbs, EFAs = Balls Out nutritional Bliss. Oh yeah, and NO gluten! 1/2 cup buckwheat groats 1/2 cup quinoa 1/2 cup millet 1/4 cup flax seed Pour into 3 cups boiling water, reduce heat, cook for 20 minutes. Serve as breakfast cereal or toss cold with greens or as pilaf. I add stevia, coconut oil, organic cocoa powder and walnuts and it's like eating German Chocolate Cake for breakfast. This will change your life and you will all nominate me for food Avatar-of-the-day.

BINGO! Pax nails it. There are plenty of Buddhist centers throughout the US where basic instruction and guidance are available for next to nothing, and participating in a the "sangha" (buddhist community) is considered essential for spiritual development. Even in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the two main ports of entry for Easterners who started coming to North America back in the 60s, the Taoist centers that are available are limited compared with the Buddhist centers. Granted, East//West dialogue has been more robust and more lengthy with Buddhism, so it's plausible to imagine some point in the future where Taoism catches up. But even in LA, chi kung and Chinese martial arts study is not inexpensive. Neither is TCM. I happened upon nei kung instruction by accident, and it served me so well I that I can never adequately express my gratitude, but I did get myself into a pretty severe bind with some chi flow obstructions that caused a few problems. If I had access to proper Microcosmic Orbit instruction I would've sailed past the problems I incurred. As it turns out, I got incredibly helpful advice in this forum by http://www.alchemicaltaoism.com/ I also created some confusion for myself by reading a variety of works by different authors that ultimately conflicted. Frantzis, Chia, Jwing ming, Waysun Liao, Clyman... the list goes on. I know this is reductionistic, but Deng Ming-Dao is my top choice for getting the spirit of Taoism from informal study.

Are there any active Taoists in British Columbia? I'm preparing an exit strategy from the US, due in large part to the views expressed here. http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2009/08/how-...-man-stand.html

Yep, I would have to concur that that was Disillusionment on Steroids. The odd thing is that I recognize it as a synopsis of widely expressed sentiments, which imbues the sentiment with even more credibility. I blame my college coursework. Why didn't I major in marketing or finance and just do cocaine for the rest of my life? it would've been so much easier to deal with all this shit! Conscience, I curse you!

This was probably the best move I made in the last few weeks. Working on the little orbit exclusively has left me feeling much better, less blocked (especially between the shoulderblades). I can definitely see how people can do a lot of physical and emotional damage to themselves without knowing it.